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The Silver Series of English Classics 



SELECTED POEMS AND TALES 

Si.'? 



EDGAE ALLA^ POE 



EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 



BY 



! CHAKLES MARSHALL GRAVES, B.A. 

EDITORIAL STAFF, TIMES-DISPATCH, RICHMOND, VA. 




SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY 

New York Atlanta Boston Dallas Chicago 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two CoDles Received 

FEB 20 !906 

^Cooyri^ht Entry 
CLASS ^ ai XXc. N«, 



A- 



Copyright, 1906, by 
SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY. 



TO 

Captain Jobn ®twa^ ®te^, 

WHOSE INTEREST IN THE EDUCATION OF YOUNG MEN 
AND WOMEN I HAVE NEVER SEEN EXCELLED 



PKEFACE. 

The life of Edgar Allan Poe, of all American men 
of letters, is by far the most interesting to study. He 
was the child of the direst poverty and of the greatest 
genius. Between his lowly birth and his tragic death 
Poe felt a degree of joy given to few men to feel and 
drank the cup of bitterness to the dregs. Since his death 
in Baltimore, Sunday morning, October 7, 1849, his 
fame has increased in all lands. This can be said of few 
American writers. Tennyson declared of Poe in 1885: 
" He is the literary glory of America. More than thirty- 
five years have elapsed since his death, and his fame is 
constantly increasing. That is the true test of genius.'' 

Like Homer all places claim him : Boston, for his birth ; 
Eichmond, Philadelphia and New York for his residence 
at various times in these cities; and Baltimore for his 
death. The truth is, he belongs to the nation and to 
humanity at large and his works are the heritage of the 
civilized people of all coming times. 

Few men have had such power in the use of words as 
Poe, and his writings are of the greatest value for critical 
study among students and lovers of the chief classics in the 
language. 

In my selection for this volume, I have chosen the best of 
the author's poems, and five representative tales. These, 
I think, will give the student, as well as the general reader, 
a comprehensive grasp of Poe's most enduring Work. In 

V 



yi PREFACE. 

the arrangement of the poems and of the tales, the order of 
composition rather than that of publication, wherever the 
two differed, has been followed as far as possible. 

The illustrations are selected from a variety of 
photographs and daguerreotypes which I have collected 
through several years of effort. A number of them have 
never before been reproduced. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction 

I Biographical ix 

II Critical xxiii 

Chronological Outline xxvi 

Bibliography xxix 

POEMS. 

To Helen 1 

To 3 

The Happiest Day, The Happiest Hour 2 

A Dream 3 

A Dream within a Dream 4 

The Lake : To 5 

To The River 6 

Israfel 7 

The Sleeper 9 

The City in the Sea 11 

Lenore 13 

The Valley of Unrest 14 

The Coliseum 15 

Hymn 16 

Bridal Ballad 17 

To Zante 18 

The Haunted Palace 19 

To One in Paradise 31 

To F 33 

vii 



yiii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Conqueror Worm 22 

Dream Land 24 

Eulalie A Song 26 

The Raven 27 

Ulalume 33 

To Helen 36 

For Annie 38 

To My Mother 42 

The Bells 42 

Annabel Lee 46 

Eldorado , 48 

TALES. 

Morella 51 

Fall of The House of Usher 58 

Masque of the Red Death 81 

Eleonora 89 

The Gold-Bug 97 

Notes 141 



INTRODUCTION. 



I. BIOGRAPHICAL. 



Early in the seventies a strange woman, with a look of 
poverty and wretchedness in her shallow eyes, appeared 
upon the streets of Richmond, Virginia, trying to sell little 
photographs. They were likenesses of her brother, she said. 
People stared at her and passed on. Once or twice an 
elderly man or woman stopped to speak to her and she 
would almost cry with joy at sight of a familiar face. 
Before she let them go she spoke of her want and loneli- 
ness and they readily bought the pictures she offered. The 
brother was Edgar Allan Poe; the woman, Rosalie Mac- 
Kenzie Poe, his only sister. 

Poe was born in Boston. The accepted date of his 
birth is January 19, 1809, the natal year also of Tenny- 
son, Poe's favorite poet, of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, to 
whom he dedicated " The Raven,^' of Charles Darwin, of 
Chopin and of Mendelssohn, makers of a melody scarcely 
different from the poet's, of Abraham Lincoln, and of the 
great William E. Gladstone. 

When Poe matriculated at the University of Virginia, 
he gave the date of his birth as January 19, 1809. Writ- 
ing to Mrs. Byrd, a daughter of Mrs. MacKenzie, with 
whom he and his sister had grown up, he remarked that 
had she set her marriage date one week later, it would have 
fallen on his birthday. She was to be wedded October 5. 
Mrs. Byrd adds in* her note on the subject to Mrs. Susan 
Archer Weiss, who came to know Poe intimately during his 
last visit to Richmond in 1849, and to whom the world is 

ix 



X INTRODUCTION. 

indebted for the best pen picture of him at that time, that 
Edgar was born in 1808 and Eosalie in 1810. 

The spring of 1811 found the family in Norfolk, Vir- 
ginia. It consisted of David Poe, his wife the dainty 
little actress, two children, and an elderly woman thought 
to have been Mrs. Poe's mother. William Henry, the 
eldest child, had been left in Baltimore with his grand- 
parents. 

David Poe died in Norfolk late that spring. Mrs. Weiss 
of Eichmond informed the writer that in 1811 her mother 
was living in Norfolk and was a daily visitor at the house 
of her aunt, Mrs. Butt, on Bermuda street. David Poe, 
his wife, two small children, and a nurse, the latter an old 
woman called Mrs. Tubbs or Mrs. Tibbs, whose imperfect 
English greatly amused the mother of Mrs, Weiss, lived in 
the attic of an adjoining house. Mr. Poe was ill and the 
old nurse kept the two children out of doors most of the 
time. David Poe died of consumption and was buried in 
one of the cemeteries of Norfolk. 

In the summer of that year Mrs. Poe came to Eichmond 
to take her place in Green's Company, which opened its 
engagement at the Eichmond Theater in September. The 
theater in which she played stood on the north side of 
Broad street between Twelfth and College streets. It was 
burned on the night of December 26, 1811.* 



* On that night there was a benefit performance for Mr. 
Placide, one of the most popular actors of Green's Company, of 
which Mrs. Poe had been a member. As it was in the Christmas 
holidays, the theater was crowded. In the flames seventy-two 
perished, and there was scarcely a family of prominence in the 
city that did not lose a member or a close connection. Three 
years after the burning of the play house, the Monumental 
church was erected on the site. The ash^s of those who per- 
ished in the theater are preserved in a marble urn in the vesti- 
bule of the church and their names are inscribed upon it. Mrs. 
Poe appeared for the last time on her benefit night early in the 
October preceding the fire. 



INTRODUCTION. xi 

Mrs. Weiss relates that the widowed actress, broken in 
health and utterly ruined in fortune, had engaged a base- 
ment room for herself and her children under the store of 
a milliner named Phillips. Mrs. Weiss does not remember 
Phillips's Christian name and, since there were no direc- 
tories for Richmond as early as 1811, it is impossible to de- 
termine the exact location of Phillips's store. It was, how- 
ever, on the south side of Main street in the " Bird-in- 
Hand " District, and therefore near where Shockoe Creek 
flows now under the street, then through it. In her damp 
cellar the delicate actress contracted pneumonia and on 
Sunday, December 8, 1811, died. She was probably buried 
at the expense of the city. Her grave, says Mrs. Weiss, is 
in the burying-ground of old St. John's Church,* by the 
eastern wall, but one looks for it in vain. 

About ten days before her death, an appeal in her behalf 
was made to the good people of Richmond through the 
Richmond Enquirer, j; This paper, then the best in 
Virginia, announced that Mrs. Poe was dangerously ill and 
in great want, and concluded by saying that this would 
perhaps be her last plea for assistance. The little para- 
graph was quaintly written and addressed to " The Hu- 
mane Heart." 

Mrs. Poe's children were not long homeless. Mrs. Jane 
MacKenzie took Rosalie; Mr. and Mrs. John Allan took 
Edgar. Dr. John F. Carter, who obtained the informa- 
tion from his mother and other elderly ladies who were 
intimate with the Allan family, says that Mr. and Mrs. 
Allan had at first no idea of adopting the boy, but only in- 
tended to take care of him until relatives in Baltimore 
could be reached. 



*This church is known to all the world for the immortal words 
spoken there by Patrick Henry—" Give me liberty, or give me 
death." 

t See Richmond Enquirer, November_29, 181L 



Xii INTRODUCTION. 

The biographers are mistaken in the assertion that Mr. 
Allan was then a wealthy man. He and Mr. Charles 
Ellis were at the time doing a general merchandise business 
at the corner of Fourteenth street and Tobacco alley, on 
a site opposite that of the Exchange Hotel on Fourteenth 
street where many years after Poe made his two appear- 
ances before Richmond audiences. Mr. and Mrs. Allan 
lived over the store. This was the modest temporary home 
which they gave the boy. 

According to Dr. Carter, Mr. Allan engaged in a corres- 
pondence with the Baltimore connections of the orphan. 
Their responses were not at all satisfactory, and in the 
meantime Edgar, no longer a baby skeleton, had grown 
to be such an attractive child that Mrs. Allan begged 
her husband to keep him. They had no children^, 
though they had been married several years, and Mr. 
Allan consented. If Dr. Carter is correct, Mr. Allan 
never adopted the boy in a legal way. 

Mrs. MacKenzie was at the time conducting a school 
for girls in a frame house at the northwest comer of Fifth 
and Main streets, just opposite the house which Mr. Allan 
bought in the summer of '""-'"'^ ^-nd which wa? ^^^'« home 
for some months before he went to the University of 
Virginia. She had a number of children of her own, and 
it was due to the promptings of her motherly heart that 
she took the baby, Rosalie, into her home. So Poe and 
his sister were destined to grow up very near each other 
and to see each other daily, as the families were intimate. 

Mr. William Gait, Mr. Allan's uncle, had a store on 
Franklin street, between Fourteenth and Fifteenth, and 
did an immense tobacco business. His success probably 
turned the thoughts of "Ellis and Allan" toward an ex- 
clusive trade in tobacco, and with a view to opening a mar- 
ket for the famed Virginia leaf, Mr. Allan went to England 
in 1814, taking with him Mrs. Allan, her sister Miss 



INTRODUCTION. xiii 

Valentine, and Edgar. During their stay in England the 
boy was left at school at Stoke Newington. The building 
in which Poe was a pupil has but recently been torn down. 
While Mr. Allan was away the Fourteenth street store 
was given up. The first directory of Richmond, that of 
John Maddox, published in 1819, places the store of 
"Ellis and Allan" on the east side of Fifteenth street, 
south of Main, second door from the corner. It is inter- 
esting to note that the first building, which is now in the 
dust, stood just across the alley from the present location 
of the printing house of John W. Ferguson, who was a 
•^ devil " in the office of the Southern Literary Messenger, 
when Poe was its editor ; and that the second stands to-day 
adjoining the Messenger building, where Poe wrote 
some of his spiciest criticisms and the early instalments of 
" Arthur Gordon Pym." 

Biographers of Poe say that when Mr. Allan came back 
his house was leased and he went to Mr. Ellis's residence. 
The fact is that Mr. Allan had no residence upon his 
return in the summer of 1820. Mr. Ellis had a comfort- 
able residence on the south side of Franklin street, between 
First and Second. Mr. and Mrs. Allan and Edgar re- 
mained with the Ellises nearly a year until Mr. Allan 
rented a small frame dwelling on North Fifth street, near 
the corner of Clay. This cottage — for it was scarcely more 
— was standing within the last ten years, and was torn 
down to make room for a more pretentious brick residence. 
A livery stable stands on a part of the yard in which Poe 
played. 

It was while in this house that the poet attended the 
classical school of Joseph H. Clarke. This fiery Irishman 
from Trinity College, Dublin, gave up teaching in the fall 
of 1823. Poe was selected by the boys to deliver the fare- 
well ode and did so with grace and satisfaction to all. 
Master William Burke succeeded Master Clarke. Dr. 



Xiv INTRODUCTION. 

Creed Thomas, who was Poe's deskmate at Burke's, and 
who lived until February 23, 1899, in an interview a short 
time before his death, said that the school was at the 
southeast corner of Broad and Eleventh streets where the 
Powhatan Hotel now stands. 

During this period of his school days Poe accomplished 
the swim from Richmond to Warwick Park, six miles 
down the James. This famous swim was made later by 
Mr. Charles M. Wallace, the Richmond antiquarian. One 
of Poe's old playmates told this gentleman that he himself 
started in with Poe but the imperious youth was so furious 
that another should attempt to rival him that he yielded to 
Poe and got into the boat accompanying them. 

Poe, Dr. Creed Thomas, Beverly Anderson and William 
P. Ritchie, all schoolmates and destined to be men of note, 
were at that time members of the Thespian Society and 
gave their amateur theatrical performances in the old 
wooden house which stood at the northeast corner of Sixth 
and Marshall streets where there is now a police station. 

It was from Burke's School that Poe went home one 
afternoon with Robert Stanard, one of his few intimate 
friends, to meet the lad's mother, the gentle Jane Craig | 
Stanard, whom the boy loved at first sight and who became ' 
the " Helen " of one of the most exquisite poems ever 
written. He thought the name of Jane ugly and addressed 
his lines " To Helen " instead. When Mrs. Stanard died 
his young heart was almost broken and night after night 
he would go to her grave and weep upon it. Mrs. Stanard 
was the wife of Robert Stanard, a lawyer of unusual ability 
and for a number of years United States attorney for the 
district of Virginia. 

Dr. Carter tells the story of " Don Pompioso,'' one of 
Poe's early poems, now lost. A young Richmonder who re- 
garded himself too high in social life to associate with the 
son of an actress and a pauper, greatly humiliated Poe ^nd 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

deeply wounded his sensitive nature by letting the facts of 
his birth be known. Soon a poem appeared on the streets 
ridiculing unmercifully this young man. The girls at Mrs. 
MacKenzie's school, then 506 East Franklin street, found a 
copy of the poem and were laughing over it and wondering 
who its author was. One evening about dusk Poe dropped 
in at the school where his sister lived and where he came 
and went at pleasure, a privilege denied to other young 
men of the city. A number of young people were in the 
parlor and one of the girls asked him to read the poem 
aloud. This he did by the fading light with a readiness 
one could not have possibly shown without really repeat- 
ing it from memory. " You wrote it ! " they all cried and 
he did not deny it. When the young man who had drawn 
the fire appeared on the street he was peppered with allu- 
sions from the poem, with jests and gibes, and at length 
was driven from the city. The last MacKenzie house is 
standing yet and is in good condition considering its age. 
Dr. Carter who knew the MacKenzies intimately, identi- 
fied it positively. 

In March, 1825, Poe left Burke's school and began 
private coaching for the University of Virginia. It was 
about this time that he met Miss Sarah Elmira Royster, 
his first sweetheart, afterward Mrs. Shelton. 

This year was also eventful for Mr. Allan. His uncle, 
Mr Gait, died in March and Mr. Allan came in for one- 
third of his estate, valued at approximately one million 
dollars. Mr. Robert Lee Traylor, of Richmond, has a 
certified copy of Mr. Gait's will. It shows that Mr. Allan 
received more than three hundred thousand dollars in 
money and property, a great fortune in that day. This 
was really the first time in his life that Mr. Allan had 
more than a comfortable living. Less than two months 
after Mr. Gait's death, Mr. Allan bought the house on 
the southeast corner of Main and Fifth streets, long known 
locally as the " Allan House.'' 



XVI 



INTRODUCTION. 



Poe lived in the new home from late in the summer of 
1825 until the middle of February, 1826, when he entered 
the University of Viiginia. His happiest days in the 
Allan household were gone. He came back to Eichmond 
under a cloud in December of the same year and, not liking 
the counting-room work which Mr. Allan gave him to do, 
ran away. 

The Allan house was torn down fifteen years ago. For 
a long time the lot remained vacant. Until a year ago 
the Young Men's Christian Association had an athletic 
field there, but now it has been built up with residences 
fronting on Fifth street and with stores fronting on 
Main. 

Poe went almost directly to Boston and published the 
first edition of his poems " Tamerlane and Other Poems. 
By a Bostonian." His next move was to enlist in the 
army under the name of Edgar A. Perry. He. was first 
stationed at Charleston, South Carolina, and later at 
Fortress Monroe, Virginia. He rose by merit to the post 
of Sergeant-Ma j or, and Imally secured his release to go to 
the United States Military Academy. 

Tradition says that Mrs. Allan made an appeal to Mr. 
Allan on her death-bed to do all he could for Edgar. 
The young man returned to Eichmond shortly after Mrs. 
Allan's death which occurred February 28, 1829. He was 
seeking appointment to the West Point Academy and had 
been advised to enlist Mr. Allan's influence. With the 
tender plea of his dying wife still ringing in his ears Mr. 
Allan gave this influence in a letter in which, however, he 
took pains to disown Edgar. 

Poe entered the Academy July 1, 1830 and was there 
scarcely a month before finding that military training 
was beyond endurance distasteful to him. He plunged 
into every form of mischief calculated to lower his stand- 
ing in the school. By failure to meet even the most 
ordinary duties of Academy life did he bring about his 



INTRODUCTION. Xvii 

trial by court-martial and dismissal from the Academy, 
the sentence becoming effective March 6, 1831. 

Shortly after leaving West Point Poe issued his third 
volume of poems. Under the impression that this col- 
lection would contain many of his best poetic " digs '' at 
the professors of the Academy, the cadets subscribed liber- 
ally to the edition. The volume, dedicated to the " U. S. 
Corps of Cadets " was, however, a source of great disgust 
to the young men whom it sought to honor, for it contained 
only such immortal contributions as " To Helen," " The 
Sleeper,'^ " The Valley of Unrest," " Lenore," and other 
poems that are now almost equally as well known. 

Two years later Poe came again into the lime light 
when he won a hundred-dollar prize awarded by the 
Saturday Visiter, of Baltimore, for the best prose con- 
tribution. " The Ms. found in a battle," one of the 
'^ Tales of the Folio Club," was selected as the best and 
one of the judges, John P. Kennedy, became the young 
author's friend and benefactor and remained so to the end. 

Just before Mr. Allan died, in the latter part of March 
1834, Poe made a brief visit to Richmond. The story is 
that he rushed to Mr. Allan's room and found him sitting 
in a chair. Upon seeing the wayward young man, Mr. 
Allan, it is said, seized his walking stick, and waving it 
menacingly, bade him leave the room forever. 

Mrs. Weiss and Dr. Carter assert with equal positiveness 
that Poe left the Allans on account of unpleasant words 
with the second Mrs. Allan. Mrs. Weiss says that this 
lady took Poe's room away from him and gave him one in 
the back of the house, not nearly so attractive. This made 
him furious, as it is easy to imagine, and a wordy war 
followed. This was the reason, say she and Dr. Carter, 
that Mr. Allan sent Poe away. The second Mrs. Allan 
denied this, saying that Poe was never in the house but 
twice after her marriage, and that she never saw him but 
once in her life. 



Xviii INTRODUCTION. 

In the summer of the next year Poe came to Eichmond 
to help Mr. Thomas W. White, edit the Southern Literary 
Messenger. The Messenger was printed on the first 
floor of the building, yet standing, at the southeast corner 
of Main and Fifteenth streets. Mr. White and the poet 
had their offices on the second floor, overlooking the street. 

In the spring of 1836 Mrs. Clemm, Poe's aunt, and her 
daughter, Virginia, came to Richmond and obtained board 
with Mrs. James Yarrington, whose house was at the cor- 
ner of Twelfth and Bank streets. The flames of 1865 
swept it away. It is virtually certain that here Edgar and 
Virginia were married. The date. May 16, 1836,"* is well- 
known. The Rev. Amasa Converse, editor of the Southern 
Religious Telegraph, a Presbyterian weekly, performed the 
ceremony. Thomas W. Cleland went on the marriage 

*The following is a facsimile of the marriage bond issued on 
that day by Charles Howard, Deputy clerk of the Court of Hast- 
ings. 

KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS, That we (?^^^ o^ 




are held and firmly bound unto /f^'n^K^^-^'n^y/ic^/.e^t^jc^ ^ <^c*-i^45<n.»»v^ Governor of the 

Commonwealth of Virginia, in the just and full sum of one hundred and fiftt dollars, to the 

payment whereof, well and truly to be made to the said Governor, or his successors, for (he use of 

A 
the said Commonwealth, we bind ourselves and each of us, our and each of our heirs, executors 

and administrators, jointly and severally, firmly by these presents. Sealed with our seals, and 

dated this /^ — day of 7?7cc-t-f^ 183^ 

THE CONDITION OF THE ABOVE OBLIGATION IS SUCH, That whereas a 
marriage is shortly hitended to be had and solemnized between the above bound Cc^af ^^*t-n< 

CyT--^2ff~<i^ • ■ and l/di/r<^^>v< <^ ^. S^^<^r??7^ 

of the City of Ricbmond. Now if there is no lawful cause to obstruct said marriage, then the 
above obfigation to be void, else to remain in full force and virtue. 



&%. 



^^^^fe 



INTRODUCTION. 



XIX 



bond, swearing that Virginia was twenty-one, when she was 
but fourteen. 

" There never was a more perfect gentleman than Mr. 
Poe when he was sober/' says Mr. Ferguson, " but he was a 
very devil when drunk. He would just as soon lie down in 
the gutter as anywhere else." 

It was on account of ^' lying down in the gutter " too 
often that Mr. White announced in the first number of the 
Messenger of 1837 that " Mr. Poe's attention has been 
called in another direction." 

Poe went from Richmond to New York. At No. 
113 J Carmine street the family consisting of the poet, 
Virginia and Mrs. Clemm lived quite happily for eight 
months. Mrs. Clemm took in boarders to help in making 
ends meet which almost all the poet's life seemed to have 
no affinity for each other. Poe continued to write vigor- 
ously, completing '^ Arthur Gordon Pym." 

The period 1838 to 1844 was spent in Philadelphia and 
was possibly the most active and productive of the poet's 
life. He became associate editor of the Gentleman's 
Magazine, afterwards absorbed by Graham's. Poe ac- 
cepted a position with Graham's and did excellent work, 
which was rewarded with Mr. Graham's commendation 
and increasing regard. During this period he wrote the 
*^ Tales of Grotesque and Arabesque," and a great number 
of important contributions to his own and other mag- 
azines. 

In the spring of 1844 Poe again took up -his residence 
in New York, first with the Evening Mirror, and then 
as the proprietor of the short-lived Broadway Journal. 
The next year was notable, the great year, in fact, in his 
life, for it marks the publication of his masterpiece, '^ The 
Raven," elevating him to a high and ever secure position 
in the world of letters. Twelve months later the now 
famous cottage at Fordham was taken. Here the ex- 
quisitely beautiful ^^ Annabel Lee " was written, and here 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

January 30, 1847, death robbed him of his beloved Vir- 
ginia. Devoted friends of this sad period of his life were 
Frances Sargent Osgood, Marie Louise Shew and Sarah 
Helen Whitman. To the latter he gave all the intense 
passionate affection of a lonely heart. In 1848 she was 
betrothed to Poe, but the engagement was broken and a 
few months later he was in Eichmond making love with 
equal ardor to his first sweetheart, Mrs. Shelton. It was 
indeed fitting that he should see his dear old Richmond 
again before the end. August, 1849, marked his last visit 
to the city where he had spent his boyhood days. 

One of his new friends was John R. Thompson, the 
poet, who two years before had purchased the Messenger. 
Another new friend was little Miss Susan Archer Talley, 
who, though but seventeen years old, had written some 
admirable poems. She had heard much of the dis- 
tinguished poet from her mother, the MacKenzies, and 
Rosalie, and had read almost everything he had written. 
Miss Talley is now the Mrs. Weiss, who has already been 
mentioned in this sketch. 

Poe took lodgings at Swan Tavern, on the north side of 
Broad street, between Eighth and Ninth streets. This 
famous old building was erected about 1795 and was the 
leading tavern in Richmond for a quarter of a century. 
But when Poe came there in 1849 the prestige of the place 
was gone. It was hardly more than a cheap boarding 
house. The poet did not go there first, but to the United 
States Hotel, at the southwest corner of Nineteenth and 
Main Streets, in the " Bird-in-Hand " neighborhood. The 
latter building is now used as a Methodist Mission house. 

Poe changed to the Swan to be nearer his friends, the 
MacKenzies, who were living at Duncan Lodge, a mile out 
on the Broad Street Road. The Swan building was torn 
down in the spring of 1904 and the Bijou Theater erected 
on the site. In its exterior it had changed but little since 



INTRODUCTION. XXi 

Poe's eyes saw it — just a little older and a little more 
battered. 

Naturally Poe went at once to see the MacKenzies, for 
they had ever been faithl^ul to him, and his sister was 
there. Here he met many of his old friends and was 
introduced to others who knew him by reputation and soon 
became warmly attached to him.. One of the latter was 
Dr. John F. Carter. Dr. Carter is still living in Eich- 
mond. He says that one night when no one was there but 
the family and two or three intimate friends the poet re- 
cited ^' The Raven.^' His reading was so excellent that his 
friends persuaded him to give a public reading at the Ex- 
change Hotel. Dr. Carter and ten other persons attended, 
and this was Poe's first audience in his old home. There 
is no accounting for the small attendance. Poe certainly 
did not understand it. Dr. Carter says he never saw any 
one more cast down. He went through the reading in a 
mechanical way and at once went out. 

Poe was asked some time later to deliver his lecture on 
^^ The Poetic Principle." He was assured of a goodly 
attendance and the lecture was announced. Financially 
it was a success. The proprietor of the Exchange tendered 
the parlors free of charge, and so the poet's pocket was re- 
plenished and he was as deeply grateful as he had been 
disheartened before. 

One of the eleven persons who attended the reading of 
" The Eaven '' was Mrs. Elmira Shelton, already referred 
to as Poe's first sweetheart, Sarah Elmira Eoyster. When 
he came to Eichmond in IS-AO he sought her out, then a 
widow with youthful comeliness retained and an abundance 
of this world's goods. She was living on Grace street be- 
tween Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth streets directly 
opposite St. John's Church. Mrs. Shelton used to say that 
Poe had often told her that she was the " Lost Lenore " of 
" The Eaven " and her home at that time has frequently 
been referred to as the " home of the Lost Lenore." 



Xxii INTRODUCTION. 

The place where Poe felt most at home was Duncan 
Lodge, the home of the MacKenzies. The old place looks 
to-day very much as it did during that summer and 
autumn fifty-four years ago. The only alteration in the 
house since Poe knew it is the addition of a story. It is 
now used as an industrial home for men. 

On the south side of Broad street the girlhood home of 
Mrs. Weiss yet stands. The poet was a frequent visitor 
there. The house is unchanged in appearance, though 
Mrs. Weiss tells me that the surroundings are greatly 
altered. All the beautiful trees are gone. It was at this 
house that Poe spent the evening of his last night but one 
in Eichmond. Sitting with the Talley family until bed- 
time that Sunday evening of the last day in September, 
he came down Broad street to Duncan Lodge and spent 
the night. The poet met some gay friends in Sadler's 
" Old Market Hotel " the next night, and they talked, 
laughed, and drank together until early Tuesday morning, 
when the boat left for Baltimore. It carried Poe away 
from Richmond forever. 

Wednesday evening he was found insensible on the 
streets of Baltimore and was taken to a hospital. He 
died there Sunday morning, October 7, without regaining 
consciousness. 

The mystery of this most fascinating figure in the 
world of letters continues to the last, baffling at some 
point all those who, seeking truth, have turned their atten- 
tion upon it. 



II. CRITICAL. 

By far the most unique figure in the American world 
of letters is Edgar Allan Poe. It would hardly be ac- 
curate to set him above all other Americans in liter- 
ature; better, indeed, to give him a place apart from all 
others. 

If one will imagine one's self in a great hall where are 
gathered the marble statues of the leading men who have 
helped to give America a literature of her own, and will 
give to Poe a pedestal not only as high as the rest but in 
a section of the great gallery all alone, the true position 
of this poet and marvellously versatile story teller will be 
illustrated. 

Were it a hall where are gathered the statues of the men 
who have made the true and lasting literature of our lan- 
guage, the striking figure of Poe would not only be among 
America's chief representatives there but, unfortunately, 
because of the literary sterility of our hustling commercial 
life, he would have but few of his countrymen about him. 
Whatever the eminence our own fondness and national 
pride may give to the scholarly New England group, to the 
lovable Irving, and to contemporaneous authors, the 
European world knows little of American literature be- 
yond that produced by Poe. Tennyson reflected very 
largely his country's sentiment as well as his own when he 
told an American that other writers of this country were 
as nothing in comparison with Poe. Such an estimate is 
doubtless neither kind nor correct, but it illustrates how 
American literary figures appear from a distance. 

xxiii 



Xxiv INTRODUCTION, 

The student of Poe's life will find it truly difficult, if 
he is really trying, to arrive at a just estimate of the man 
and the author. He will not find the task uninteresting, for 
the career of Poe is indeed the most striking and fascinat- 
ing in the American literary group. But he must needs 
exercise the most painstaking effort to get at the true 
value of everything that is said or written about his sub- 
ject. For the very reason that Poe's character is so mysti- 
fying and complex many volumes of criticism, friendly 
and adverse, have been written about him. So much in- 
deed has been said about the man's home life as well as 
literary production that the conscientious student is apt to 
be deeply perplexed if not bewildered at the very offset. 
He finds pretty soon, if persistent, that Poe really lives to- 
day in three widely different spheres — that giren him by 
those who see little good in him,' either in his private life 
or in his work ; that given him by* those who have in haste 
rushed to the other extreme, canonizing his virtues and 
hiding his glaring faults; and finally, that which is his 
very own, " the true Poe." 

Poe wrote as a boy when sending out his first recollection 
of poems, " Poetry has been with me a passion, not a pur- 
pose." He then gave an estimate of his powers probably 
more accurate than even he fully realized. Through his 
whole life poetry remained a " passion " and to-day his 
fame as a poet rests on a few brief lyrics which, if all were 
bound together, would not make a volume nearly so large 
as Tennyson's " Princess." But so musical, so beautiful 
and powerful in imagery, and so thought-suggestive are 
these that they will live as ornamental figures of the lan- 
guage to the end. Poe's poetic ideas and conceptions were 
not large. His genius found a few diamonds, found some 
of them very early in life, and his later years were devoted 
to polishing these gems until they shone with marvellous 
brilliancy. Then he finally gave them to the world, a 



INTRODUCTION. XXV 

finished whole, shortly before his death. He said in the 
apparent prime of life " I have produced my best poetry." 
It was enough. 

Poe did not say this of his " Tales " ; rather he declared 
that it was not true of them. His skill in story-telling 
seems to have been inexhaustible. While his poems are 
probably better known than the " Tales/^ in the latter are 
even more strikingly evident his rare imagination and 
splendid intellectual force. The stories which filled the 
periodical press of that day and those with which the cur- 
rent magazines teem are as " little worth " when com- 
pared in literary style and original power with such 
" tales " as " The Fall of The House of Usher/' or " The 
Black Cat." Their poetic beauty or thrilling strangeness 
are forgotten when seen in the light of " Eleonora " or 
'^ Morella." This difference is also noted, Poe wrote for 
all succeeding generations. 



CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE OF POE'S 

LIFE. 

1809. January 19th, Thursday. Born in Boston while his 
parents, David Poe, Jr., and Elizabeth Arnold Poe, members of 
a traveling theatrical company, were filling an engagement 
there. 

1811. Death of father in Norfolk, followed on December 8th 
by the death of his mother in Richmond where she had come as 
a member of Green's company. Young Edgar is given a home 
by Mr. John Allan, a tobacco merchant of Richmond. 

1815. Taken to England by Mr. Allan where the lad remains 
at school in Stoke-New ington for five years. 

1820. The Allans and Edgar return to Richmond and Edgar is 
entered at Burke's Academy. While at this school he meets 
Mrs. Jane Craig Stanard, wife of Honorable Robert Stanard, 
who by an affectionate interest and understanding of the sensi- 
tive youth completely captures his young heart. (He was almost 
beside himself over her death in 1821.) During this period also 
he accomplishes the famous swim from Richmond to Warwick, 
seven miles down the James River. 

1833. Probably composes his first poem, " To Helen." The 
exquisite verses refer to Mrs. Stanard. He thought Jane an 
ugly name and addressed the lines to " Helen " instead. 

1824. Has love affair with Sarah Elmira Royster, his first 
sweetheart. The young lady's father intercepts the love notes 
and estranges the young people. 

1825. Death of William Gait, Mr. Allan's uncle. Edgar's 
foster father becomes heir to a fortune of about three hundred 
thousand dollars. 

1826. Enters University February 14th. Leaves University at 
end of session, December 15th of same year. Mr. Allan puts 
him to work in his counting-room. Not liking this Edgar runs 
away. 

xxvi 



CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE. XXvii 

1827. Publication of " Tamerlane and Other Poems. By a 
Bostonian." Young Poe enlists in the United States army 
under the name of Edgar A. Perry. 

1829. Publication of "Al Aaraaf and Minor Poems." Death 
of Mrs. Allan. 

1830. Edgar enters West Point Military Academy where he 
remains less than one session. 

1833. Wins the prize of one hundred dollars offered by the 
Saturday Visiter of Baltimore, for the best prose article, gain- 
ing at the same time the friendship of John P. Kennedy, one of 
the judges. 

1834. Death of Mr. Allan. Poe was not even mentioned in the 
will though there is reason to believe the young man had through 
all entertained the hope that he would yet be his foster father's 
heir. 

1835. Returns to Richmond to become editor of the Southern 
Literary Messenger. 

1836. Weds the lovely Virginia Clemm. 

1837. Leaves the Messenger and Richmond. Goes to New 
York and leads a model and industrious life at No. 113 \ 
Carmine street. 

1838-1844. This period, probably tlie most productive in the 
poet's life, was spent in Philadelphia. At various times he was 
editor of the Gentleman's Magazine and Graliarn's Magazine 
and was a frequent contributor to many others. 

1845. Again in New York. Publication of "The Raven." Poe 
is now the central figure in the literary life of the metropolis. 

1846. Life at Fordham, just outside of New York city, 

1847. Death of Virginia Poe after lingering illness. The poet 
is plunged into deepest sorrow, intensified by abject and pitiable 
poverty. 

1848. Wildly in love with Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, 

1849. Estrangement from Mrs. Whitman. Returns to Rich- 
mond, visits scenes and friends of his childhood and renews 
with great earnestness and apparent success his love affair with 
Mrs. A. B. Shelton, a comely and well-to-do widow, who, as 
Sarah Elmira Royster, he had passionately loved as a youth. 
Death in Baltimore, October 8th, following a short period of 
dissipation. 



xxvm 



CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE. 



SUMMARY. 



1809-1815. Boston ; Norfolk ; Richmond. 

1815-1820. At Stoke-Newington School, England. 

1820-1826. Boyhood in Richmond, Educational period. 

1826-1880. Becomes Wanderer and Soldier. 

1830-1835. Notable literary beginnings. 

1835-1837. Editor Souther?! Literary 3Iessenger ; marries. 

1837-1844. Remarkable literary activity in Philadelphia. 

1844-1849. '^ The Raven" ; New York Period. 

1849. Richmond a^ain. Death in Baltimore. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

1827. Tamerlane and Other Poems, by a Bostonian, Calvin F, 
S. Thomas, Boston. 

1829, AlAaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems,by Edgar A. Poe, 
Hatch & Dunning, Baltimore. 

1831. Poems, by Edgar A. Poe, Elam Bliss, New York. 

1833. Ms. Found in a Bottle, (tale) ; Baltimore Visiter. 

1835. Berenice, (tale) ; Morella, (tale) ; Some Passages in the 
Life of a Lion, (tale) ; The Unparaleld Adventure of One Hans 
Phaal, (tale) ; To Mary, (poem) ; The Assignation, (tale) ; 
The Coliseum, (poem) ; Bon Bon, (tale) ; Shadow : A Parable, 
(tale) ; To F-s 0-d, (poem) ; Loss of Breath : A Tale 
Neither in Nor Out of " Blackwood," (tale); King Pest : A 

Tale containing an Allegory, (tale). 

1836. The Due de L'Omelette, (tale) ; To Helen, (poem) ; 
The City of Sin, (The Doomed City) (poem) ; Israfel, (poem) . 

1837. The Bridal Ballad, (poem) ; The Narrative of Arthur 
Gordon Pym, (tale) ; To Zante, (poem). 

1838. Ligeia, (tale) ; A Predicament, (The Scythe of Time) 
(tale). 

1839. The Haunted Palace, (poem) ; The Devil in the Belfry, 
(tale) ; The Conchologist's First Book, Haswell, Barrington, 
and Haswell, Philadelphia. To lanthe In Heaven, (poem) . 
Spirits of the Dead, (poem) ; The Man That was Used Up, 
(tale) ; Fairy Land, (poem) ; Fall of the House of Usher, 
(tale) ; William Wilson, (tale). 

1840. Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, by Edgar A. Poe, 
2 vols., Lea& Blanchard, Philadelphia ; Silence, (poem). 

1841. The Murders in the Rue Morgue, (tale) ; A Descent into 
the Maelstrom, (tale) ; The Island of the Fay, (tale) ; The Collo- 
quy of Monas and Una, (tale) ; To Helen, (poem). 

xxix 



XXX 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



1842. To One Departed, (poem) ; The Oval Portrait, (tale) ; 
Eleonora, (title) ; The Mystery of Marie Roget, a Sequel to the 
Murders in the Rue Morgue, (tale). 

1843. The Conqueror Worm, (poem) ; Lenore, (poem) • 
Romance, (poem) ; The Sleeper, (poem) ; The Black Cat, (tale). 

1844. A Tale of the Ragged Mountains ; Dreamland, (poem) ; 
Mesmeric Revelation, (tale) ; The Premature Burial, (tale) ; 
The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq., (tale) ; The Angel of 
The Odd, (tale). 

1845. The Raven and Other Poems, by Edgar A. Poe, "Wiley 
& Putnam, New York ; Tales by Edgar A. Poe, "Wiley & 
Putnam, New York ; Eulalie, (poem) ; The Purloined Letter, 
(tale) ; The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade, (tale) ; 
The Valley of Unrest, (poem) ; The Imp of the Perverse, (tale) ; 
The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether, (tale) ; The Facts 
in the case of M. Valdemar, (tale). 

1846. The Philosophy of Composition, (essay) ; The Cask of 
Amontillado, (tale). 

1847. To M. L. S. (poem) ; The Domain of Arnheim, (tale) ; 
Ulalume, (poem). 

1848. Eureka, A Prose Poem, by Edgar A. Poe, George P. 
Putnam, New York ; An Enigma, (sonnet) ; To Helen, (poem). 

1849. Mellonta Tauta, (tale) ; To My Mother, (poem) ; A 
Valentine, (poem) ; For Annie, (poem) ; Annabel Lee, (poem) ; 
The Bells, (poem). 

1850. The Poetic Principle, (essay); A Dream Within a 
Dream, (poem); Eldorado, (poem); The Works of the Late Edgar 
Allan Poe, with Memoir by Rufus Wilmot Griswold. 



POEMS, 



TO HELEN". 

Helen, thy beauty is to me 

Like those Nicean barks of yore, 

That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, 
The weary wayworn wanderer bore 
To his own native shore. 



On desperate seas long wont to roam, 
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, 

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home 
To the glory that was Greece, 

And the grandeur that was Rome. 



Lo ! in yon brilliant window niche. 
How statue-like I see thee stand. 
The agate lamp within thy hand ! 

Ah, Psyche, from the regions which 
Are Holy Land ! 



THE HAPPIEST DAY, THE HAPPIEST HOUR. 



TO 



I SAW thee on thy bridal day, 

When a burning blush came o'er thee. 

Though happiness around thee lay, 
The world all love before thee: 

And in thine eye a kindling light 

(Whatever it might be) 
Was all on Earth my aching sight 

Of Loveliness could see. 

That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame — 

As such it well may pass — 
Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame 

In the breast of him, alas ! 

Who saw thee on that bridal day. 

When that deep blush would come o'er thee 
Though happiness around thee lay. 

The world all love before thee. 



'^THE HAPPIEST DAY, THE HAPPIESl' HOUR" 

The happiest day — the happiest hour 

My seared and blighted heart hath knowm. 

The highest hope of pride and power, 
I feel hath flown. 



A DREAM. 

Of power ! said I ? yes ! such I ween ; 

But they have vanished long, alas! 
The visions of my youth have been — 

But let them pass. 

And, pride, what have I now with thee ? 

Another brow may even inherit 
The venom thou hast pour'd on me — 

Be still, my spirit ! 

The happiest day — the happiest hour 
Mine eyes shall see — have ever seen, 

The brightest glance of pride and power, 
I feel — ^have been : 

But were that hope of pride and power 

Now offer'd, with the pain 
Even then I felt — that brightest hour 

I would not live again : 

For on its wing was dark alloy. 

And as it fluttered — fell 
An essence — powerful to destroy 

A soul that knew it well. 



A DEEAM. 

In" visions of the dark night 

I have dreamed of joy departed — 

But a waking dream of life and light 
Hath left me broken-hearted. 



A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. 

Ah! what is not a dream by day 
To him whose eyes are cast 

On things around him with a ray 
Turned back upon the past ? 



That holy dream — that holy dream. 
While all the world were chiding, 

Hath cheered me as a lovely beam 
A lonely spirit guiding. 



What though that light, thro' storm and night, 

So trembled from afar — 
What could there be more purely bright 

In Truth's day-star? 



A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. 



Take this kiss upon the brow! 

And, in parting from you now. 

Thus much let me avow — 

You are not wrong, who deem 

That my days have been a dream ; 

Yet if hope has flown away 

In a night, or in a day, 

In a vision, or in none, 

Is it therefore the less gone ? 

All that we see or seem 

Is but a dream within a dream. 



THE LAKE : TO 



II. 



I stand amid the roar 
Of a surf -tormented shore, 
And I hold within my hand 
Grains of the golden sand — 
How few ! yet how they creep 
Through my fingers to the deep. 
While I weep — while I weep ! 
God ! can I not grasp 
Them with a tighter clasp? 
God ! can I not save 
One from the pitiless wave? 
Is all that we see or seem 
But a dream within a dream? 



THE LAKE: TO 



In spring of youth it was my lot 
To haunt of the wide world a spot 
The which I could not love the less — 
So lovely was the loneliness 
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound. 
And the tall pines that towered around. 



II. 



But when the Night had thrown her pall 
Upon that spot, as upon all. 
And the mystic wind went by 
Murmuring in melody — 



TO THE RIVER 

Then — ah then I would awake 
To the terror of the lone lake. 

III. 

Yet that terror was not fright, 

But a tremulous delight — 

A feeling not the jewelled mine 

Could teach or bribe me to define — 

Nor Love — although the Love were thine. 

IV. 

Death was in that poisonous wave. 

And in its gulf a fitting grave 

For him who thence could solace bring 

To his lone imagining — 

Whose solitary soul could make 

An. Eden of that dim lake. 



TO THE EIVER 



Fair river ! in thy bright, clear flow 

Of crystal, wandering water. 
Thou art an emblem of the glow 
Of beauty — the unhidden heart- 
The playful maziness of art 
In old Alberto's daughter; 

II. 

But when within thy wave she looks- 
Which glistens then, and trembles- 



ISRAFEL. 

Why, then, the prettiest of brooks 
Her worshipper resembles; 

For in his heart, as in thy stream. 
Her image deeply lies — 

His heart which trembles at the beam 
Of her soul-searching eyes. 



ISEAFEL. 

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell 

" Whose heart-strings are a lute ; " 

None sing so wildly well 

As the angel Israfel, 

And the giddy stars (so legends tell) 

Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell 
Of his voice, all mute. 

Tottering above 

In her highest noon. 

The enamoured Moon 
Blushes with love. 

While, to listen, the red levin 

(With the rapid Pleiads, even. 

Which were seven,) 

Pauses in Heaven. 

And they say (the starry choir 

And the other listening things) 

That Israfeli's fire 

Is owing to that lyre 

By which he sits and sings — 

The trembling living wire 

Of those unusual strings. 



8 ISRAFEL. 

But the skies that angel trod, 

Where deep thoughts are a duty — 

Where Love's a grown-up god — 
Where the Houri glances are 

Imbued with all the beauty 

Which we worship in a star. 

Therefore, thou art not wrong, 

Israfeli, who despisest 
An unimpassioned song; 
To thee the laurels belong, 

Best bard, because the wisest ! 
Merrily live, and long! 

The ecstasies above 

With thy burning measures suit— 

Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love. 
With the fervor of thy lute — 
Well may the stars be mute ! 

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this 

Is a world of sweets and sours; 
Our flowers are merely — flowers. 

And the shadow of thy perfect bliss 
Is the sunshine of ours. 

If I could dwell 
Where Israfel 

Hath dwelt, and he where I, 
He might not sing so wildly well 

A mortal melody, 
While a bolder note than this might swell 

From my lyre within the sky. 



THE SLEEPER. 



THE SLEEPER. 



At midnight, in the month of June, 
I stand beneath the mystic moon. 
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, 
Exhales from out her golden rim, 
And, softly dripping, drop by drop, 
Upon the quiet mountain-top. 
Steals drowsily and musically 
Into the universal valley. 
The rosemary nods upon the grave; 
The lily lolls upon the wave; 
Wrapping the fog about its breast. 
The ruin moulders into rest ; 
Looking like Lethe, see ! the lake 
A conscious slumber seems to take. 
And would not, for the world, awake. 
All Beauty sleeps ! — and lo ! where lies 
Irene, with her Destinies ! 

Oh, lady bright ; can it be right — 

This window open to the night? 

The wanton airs, from the tree-top. 

Laughingly through the lattice drop — 

The bodiless airs, a wizard rout. 

Flit through thy chamber in and out, 

And wave the curtain canopy 

So fitfully — so fearfully — 

Above the closed and fringed lid 

^Neath which thy slumbering soul lies hid. 

That, o'er the floor and down the wall, 

Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall ! 



THE SLEEPER. 

Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear? 
Why and what art thou dreaming here ? 
Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas, 
A wonder to these garden trees ! 
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress! 
Strange, above all, thy length of tress. 
And this all-solemn silentness ! 

The lady sleeps ! Oh, may her sleep. 
Which is enduring, so be deep ! 
Heaven have her in its sacred keep ! 
This chamber changed for one more holy, 
This bed for one more melancholy, 
I pray to God that she may lie 
Forever with unopened eye. 
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by ! 

My love, she sleeps ! Oh, may her sleep. 
As it is lasting, so be deep ! 
Soft may the worms about her creep ! 
Far in the forest, dim and old. 
For her may some tall vault unfold — 
Some vault that oft hath flung its black 
And winged panels fluttering back. 
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls, 
Of her grand family funerals — 
Some sepulchre, remote, alone, 
Against whose portal she hath thrown, 
In childhood, many an idle stone — 
Some tomb from out whose sounding door 
She ne'er shall force an echo more. 
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin ! 
It was the dead who groaned within. 



THE CITY IN THE SEA. H 



THE CITY IN THE SEA. 

Lo ! Death has reared himself a throne 

In a strange city lying alone 

Far down within the dim West, 

Where the good and the bad and the worst and 

the best 
Have gone to their eternal rest. 
There shrines and palaces and towers 
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not !) 
Eesemble nothing that is ours. 
Around, by lifting winds forgot, 
Eesignedly beneath the sky 
The melancholy waters lie. 

No rays from the holy Heaven come down 
On the long night-time of that town; 
But light from out the lurid sea 
Streams up the turrets silently — 
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free — 
Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls — 
Up fanes — up Babylon-like v/alls — 
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers 
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers — 
Up many and many a marvellous shrine 
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine 
The viol, the violet, and the vine. 
Eesignedly beneath the sky 
The melancholy waters lie. 
So blend the turrets and shadows there 
That all seem pendulous in air, 
While from a proud tower in the town 
Death looks gigantically down. 



12 LENORE. 

There open fanes and gaping graves 
Yawn level with the luminous waves; 
But not the riches there that lie 
In each idol's diamond eye — 
Not the gayly-jeweled dead 
Tempt the waters from their bed ; 
For no ripples curl, alas ! 
Along that wilderness of glass — 
'No swellings tell that winds may be 
Upon some far-off happier sea — 
No heavings hint that winds have been 
On seas less hideously serene. 

But lo, a stir is in the air ! 
The wave — ^there is a movement there ! 
As if the towers had thrust aside. 
In slightly sinking, the dull tide — 
As if their tops had feebly given 
A void within the filmy Heaven. 
The waves have now a redder glow — 
The hours are breathing faint and low^ 
And when, amid no earthly moans, 
Down, down that town shall settle hence, 
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones. 
Shall do it reverence. 



LENORE. 



Ah, broken is the golden bowl ! the spirit flown for ever ! 
Let the bell toll! — a saintly soul floats on the Stygian 

river ; 
And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear ? — weep now or never 

more! 
See ! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore ! 



LENORE. 13 

Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be 

sung ! — 
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so 

young— 
A dirge for her, the doubly dead in that she died so young. 

^^ Wretches ! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for 

her pride, 
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her — ^that 

she died ! 
How shall the ritual, then, be read? — the requiem how be 

sung 
By you — by yours, the evil eye, — by yours, the slanderous 

tongue 
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so 

young?'' 

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song 
Go up to God so solemnly, the dead may feel no wrong ! 
The sweet Lenore hath " gone before," with Hope, that 

flew beside, 
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been 

thy bride — 
For her, the fair and debonnaire, that now so lowly lies. 
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes, — 
The life still there, upon her hair — the death upon her 

eyes. 

^^Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I 

upraise. 
But waft the angel on her flight with a paean of old 

days! 
Let no bell toll ! — lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed 

mirth. 
Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnM 

Earth. 



14 THE VALLEY OF UNREST. 

To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost 

is riven — 
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven — 
From grief and groan to a golden throne beside the King 

of Heaven.'^ 



THE VALLEY OF UNREST. 

Once it smiled a silent dell 

Where the people did not dwell; 

They had gone unto the wars, 

Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, 

Nightly, from their azure towers, 

To keep watch above the flowers, 

In the midst of which all day 

The red sun-light lazily lay. 

Now each visitor shall confess 

The sad valley's restlessness. 

Nothing there is motionless — 

Nothing save the airs that brood 

Over the magic solitude. 

Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees 

That palpitate like the chill seas 

Around the misty Hebrides! 

Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven 

That rustle through the unquiet Heaven 

Uneasily, from morn till even, 

Over the violets there that lie 

In myriad types of the human eye — 

Over the lilies there that wave 

And weep above a nameless grave ! 

They wave: — from out their fragrant tops 

Eternal dews come down in drops. 

They weep: — from off their delicate stems 

Perennial tears descend in gems. 



THE COLISEUM. I5 



THE COLISEUM. 



Type of the antique Rome ! Rich reliquary 
Of lofty contemplation left to Time 
By buried centuries of pomp and power ! 
At length — at length — after so many days 
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst, 
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,) 
I kneel, an altered and an humble man. 
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within 
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory ! 

Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld! 
Silence ! and Desolation ! and dim Night ! 
I feel ye now — I feel ye in your strength — 
spells more sure than e'er Judsean king 
Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane ! 
charm more potent than the rapt Chaldee 
Ever drew down from out the quiet stars ! 

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls ! 

Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold, 

A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat ! 

Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair 

Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle ! 

Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled, 

Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home. 

Lit by the wan light of the horned moon. 

The swift and silent lizard of the stones ! 

But stay! these walls — these ivy-clad arcades — 
These mouldering plinths — ^these sad and blackened 
shafts — 



16 HYMN. 

These vague entablatures — this crumbling frieze — 
These shattered cornices — this wreck — this ruin — 
These stones — alas ! these gray stones — are they all- 
All of the famed, and the colossal left 
By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me? 



" Not all " — the Echoes answer me — " not all ! 

*' Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever 

" From us, and from all Euin, unto the wise, 

"As melody from Memnon to the Sun. 

" We rule the hearts of mightiest men — we rule 

" With a despotic sway all giant minds, 

" We are not impotent — we pallid stones. 

" Not all our power is gone — not all our fame — 

" Not all the magic of our high renown — 

*^ Not all the wonder that encircles us — 

" Not all the mysteries that in us lie — 

" Not all the memories that hang upon 

"And cling around about us as a garment, 

" Clothing us in a robe of more than glory.'' 



HYMN. 



At morn — at noon — at twilight dim — 
Maria ! thou hast heard my hymn ! 
In joy and wo — in good and ill — 
Mother of God, be with me still ! 
When the Hours flew brightly by. 
And not a cloud obscured the sky. 
My soul, lest it should truant be, 
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee; 



BRIDAL BALLAD. 17 

Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast 
Darkly my Present and my Past, 
Let my Future radiant shine 
With sweet hopes of thee and thine ! 



BRIDAL BALLAD. 

TO 

The ring is on my hand, 

And the wreath is on my brow; 
Satins and jewels grand 
Are all at my command. 

And I am happy now. 

And my lord he loves me well; 

But, when first he breathed his vow, 
I felt my bosom swell — 
For the words rang as a knell, 
And the voice seemed his who fell 
In the battle down the dell^ 

And who is happy now. 

But he spoke to reassure me. 

And he kissed my pallid brow, 
While a reverie came o'er me, 
And to the churchyard bore me^ 
And I sighed to him before me, 
Thinking him dead D'Elormie, 
*' Oh, I am happy now ! " 

And thus the words were spoken. 
And this the plighted vow. 



Ig TO ZANTE. 

And, though my faith be broken, 
And, though my heart be broken. 
Behold the golden token 
That proves me happy now. 



Would God I could awaken ! 

For I dream I know not how, 
And my soul is sorely shaken 
Lest an evil step be taken, — 
Lest the dead who is forsaken 

May not be happy now. 



TO ZANTE. 

Pair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers. 

Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take ! 
How many memories of what radiant hours 

At sight of thee and thine at once awake ! 
How many scenes of what departed bliss ! 

How many thoughts of what entombed hopes! 
How many visions of a maiden that is 

No more — no more upon thy verdant slopes ! 
No more ! alas, that magical sad sound 

Transforming all ! Thy charms shall please no more — 
Thy memory no more ! Accursed ground 

Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore, 
hyacinthine isle ! purple Zante ! 

" Isola d'oro ! Fior di Levante ! '' 



THE HAUNTED PALACE. 19 



THE HAUNTED PALACE. 

I. 

In the greenest of our valleys 

By good angels tenanted, 
Once a fair and stately palace — 

Eadiant palace — reared its head. 
In the monarch Thought's dominion — 

It stood there ! 
Never Seraph spread a pinion 

Over fabric half so fair ! 

II. 

Banners — yellow, glorious, golden. 

On its roof did float and flow, 
(This — all this — was in the olden 

Time long ago,) 
And every gentle air that dallied, 

In that sweet day. 
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 

A winged odor went away. 

III. 

Wanderers in that happy valley. 

Through two luminous windows, saw 
Spirits moving musically, 

To a lute's well-tuned law, 
Eound about a throne where, sitting, 

( Porphyrogene ! ) 
In state his glory well befitting. 

The ruler of the realm was seen. 



20 THE HAUNTED PALACE. 



IV. 

And all with pearl and ruby glowing 

Was the fair palace-door, 
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing 

And sparkling evermore, 
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty 

Was but to sing, 
In voices of surpassing beauty 

The wit and wisdom of their king. 



But evil things, in robes of sorrow. 

Assailed the monarch's high estate, 
(Ah, let us mourn ! — for never morrow 

Shall dawn upon him desolate!) 
And round about his home the glory 

That blushed and bloomed. 
Is but a dim-remembered story 

Of the old time entombed. 



VI. 

And travellers, now, within that valley, 

Through the red-litten windows see 
Vast forms that move fantastically 

To a discordant melody; 
While, like a ghastly rapid river. 

Through the pale door 
A hideous throng rush out for ever 

And laugh — but smile no more. 



TO ONE IN PARADISE. 21 



TO ONE IN PAEADISE. 

Thou wast all that to me, love, 
For which my soul did pine, — 

A green isle in the sea, love, 
A fountain and a shrine. 

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, 
And all the flowers were mine. 

Ah, dream too bright to last ! 

Ah, starry Hope ! that didst arise 
But to be overcast ! 

A voice from out the Future cries, 
" On ! on ! "—but o'er the Past 

(Dim gulf !) my spirit hovering lies 
Mute, motionless, aghast! 

For, alas ! alas ! with me 

The light of Life is o'er ! 
" No more — no more — no more — " 
(Such language holds the solemn sea 

To the sands upon the shore) 
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree. 

Or the stricken eagle soar ! 

And all my days are trances. 

And all my nightly dreams 
Are where thy grey eye glances, 

And where thy footstep gleams — 
In what ethereal dances. 

By what eternal streams. 



22 TO F 



TO F 

Beloved ! amid the earnest woes 

That crowd around my earthly path — 

(Drear path, alas ! where grows 

Not even one lonely rose) 

My soul at least a solace hath 

In dreams of thee, and therein knows 

An Eden of bland repose. 

And thus thy memory is to me 
Like some enchanted far-off-isle 

In some tumultuous sea — 

Some ocean throbbing far and free 
With storms — but where meanwhile 

Serenest skies continually 

Just o'er that one bright island smile. 



THE CONQUEROR WORM. 



Lo ! ^tis a gala night 

Within the lonesome latter years! 
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight 

In veils, and drowned in tears, 
Sit in a theatre, to see 

A play of hopes and fears. 
While the orchestra breathes fitfully 

The music of the spheres. 



THE CONQUEROR WORM. 23 



II. 

Mimes, in the form of God on high, 

Mutter and mumble low, 
And hither and thither fly — 

Mere puppets they, who come and go 
At bidding of vast formless things 

That -shift the scenery to and fro. 
Flapping from out their Condor wings 

Invisible wo ! 

III. 

That motley drama — oh, be sure 

It shall not be forgot ! 
With its phantom chased for evermore. 

By a crowd that seize it not. 
Through a circle that ever returneth in 

To the self-same spot. 
And much of Madness, and more of Sin, 

And Horror the soul of the plot. 

IV. 

But see, amid the mimic rout 

A crawling shape intrude ! 
A blood-red thing that writhes from out 

The scenic solitude ! 
It writhes ! — it writhes ! — with mortal pangs 

The mimes become its food. 
And the angels sob at vermin fangs 

In human gore imbued. 

V. 

Out — out are the lights — out all ! 
And, over each quivering form. 



24 DREAM LAND. 

The curtain, a funeral pall. 

Conies down with the rush of a storm, 
While the angels, all pallid and wan. 

Uprising, unveiling, affirm 
That the play is the tragedy, " Man,'' 
And its hero the Conqueror Worm. 



DREAM LAND. 



By a route obscure and lonely, 
Haunted by ill angels only, 
Where an Eidolon, named Night, 
On a black throne reigns upright, 
I have reached these lands but newly 

From an ultimate dim Thule 

From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, 
Out of Space — out of Time. 

II. 

Bottomless vales and boundless floods, 
And chasms, and caves and Titan woods. 
With forms that no man can discover 
For the tears that drip all over; 
Mountains toppling evermore 
Into seas without a shore; 
Seas that restlessly aspire. 
Surging unto skies of fire; 
Lakes that endlessly outspread 
Their lone waters — lone and dead, — 
Their still waters — still and chilly 
With the snows of the lolling lily. 



DREAM LAND. 25 



III. 



By the lakes that thus outspread 
Their lone waters, lone and dead, — 
Their sad waters, sad and chilly, — 
With the snows of the lolling lily, — 
By the mountains — near the river 
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever, — 
By the grey woods, — by the swamp 
Where the toad and newt encamp, — 
By the dismal tarns and pools 

Where dwell the ghouls, — 
By each spot the most unholy — 
In each nook most melancholy, — 
There the traveller meets, aghast. 
Sheeted Memories of the Past — 
Shrouded forms that start and sigh 
As they pass the wanderer by — 
White-robed forms of friends long given, 
In agony, to the Earth — and Heaven. 

IV. 

For the heart whose woes are legion 
^T is a peaceful, soothing region — 
For the spirit that walks in shadow 
'T is— oh, 't is an Eldorado ! 
But the traveller, travelling through it, 
May not — dare not openly view it; 
JSTever its mysteries are exposed. 
To the weak human eye unclosed ; 
So wills its king, who hath forbid 
The uplifting of the fringed lid; 
And thus the sad soul that here passes 
Beholds it but through darkened glasses. 



2^ EULALIE— A SONG. 

By a route obscure and lonely. 
Haunted by ill angels only, 
Where an Eidolon, named Night 
On a black throne reigns upright, 
I have wandered home but newly 
From the ultimate dim Thule. 



EULALIE— A SONG. 

I. 

I DWELT alone 
In a world of moan, 
And my soul was a stagnant tide. 
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing 

bride — 
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling 
bride. 

II. 

Ah, less — less bright 
The stars of the night 
Than the eyes of the radiant girl ! 
And never a flake 
That the vapour can make 
With the moon-tints of purple and pearl, 
Can vie with the modest Eulalie's most unregarded curl — 
Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie's most humble 
and careless curl. 

Now Doubt — now Pain 
Come never again, 
For her soul gives me sigh for sigh, 



THE RAVEN. 27 

And all day long 

Shines, bright and strong, 
Astart^ within the sky, 
While ever to her dear Eulialie upturns her matron eye — 
While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye. 



THE EAYEK 

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and 

weary. 
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten 

lore — 
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a 

tapping. 
As of some one gently rapping — rapping at my chamber 

door. 
" ^Tis some visitor," I muttered, " tapping at my chamber 

door — 

Only this and nothing more." 



Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, 
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the 

floor. 
Eagerly I wished the morrow; — ^vainly I had sought to 

borrow 
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost 

Lenore — 
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name 

Lenore — 

Nameless here forevermore 



2g THE RAVEN. 

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple cur- 
tain 

Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt 
before ; 

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood re- 
peating 

" 'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber 
door — 

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber 
■ door; — 

This it is and nothing more." 

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no 
longer, 

*^ Sir," said I, ^*^ or Madam, truly your forgiveness I im- 
plore ; 

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came 
rapping. 

And so faintly you came tapping — tapping at my chamber 
door — 

That I scarce was sure I heard you " — here I opened wide 
the door: — 

Darkness there and nothing more. 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there won- 
dering, fearing. 

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream 
before ; 

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no 
token. 

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, 
'' Lenore ! " 

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, 
"Lenore!" 

Merely this and nothing more. 



THE RAVEN. 29 

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me 
burning, 

Soon I heard again a tapping, somewhat louder than be- 
fore. 

" Surely," said I, " surely that is something at my window 
lattice ; 

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery ex- 
plore — 

Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery ex- 
plore ; — 

^Tis the wind and nothing more.'^ 

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and 

flutter. 
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of 

yore; 
Not the least obeisance made he ; not an instant stopped or 

stayed he; 
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber 

door — 
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber 

door — 

Perched, and sat, and nothing more. 

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, 
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it 

wore, 
*^ Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, 

" art sure no craven. 
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the 

Nightly shore — 
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian 

shore ! " 

Quoth the Raven, ^' Nevermore." 



30 THE RAVEN. 

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so 

plainly, 
Though its answer little meaning — little relevancy bore ; 
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being 
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber 

door — 
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber 

door, ' 

With such name as ^' Nevermore." 

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke 
only 

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did out- 
pour. 

Nothing further then he uttered — not a feather then he 
fluttered — 

Till I scarcely more than muttered, " Other friends haVe 
flown before — 

On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown 
before." 

Then the bird said, " Nevermore." 

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, 
^^ Doubtless," said I, " what it utters is its only stock and 

store ; 
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful 

Disaster 
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden 

bore — 
Till the dirges of his Hope the melancholy burden bore 
Of ^ Never — nevermore.^ " 

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling. 
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and 
bust and door; 



THE RAVEN. 31 

Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking 
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of 

yore — 
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous 

bird of yore 

Meant in croaking " Nevermore." 

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing 

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's 
core; 

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease re- 
clining 

On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated 
o'er. 

But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloat- 
ing o'er. 

She shall press, ah, nevermore! 

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an 

unseen censer 
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted 

floor. 
''Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee— by these 

angels he hath sent thee 
Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories of 

Lenore ! 
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost 

Lenore ? " 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore.'^ 

" Prophet ! " said I, " thing of evil !— prophet still, if bird 

or devil ! — 
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee 

here ashore, 



32 THE RAVEN. 

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land en- 
chanted — 

On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, I im- 
plore — 

Is there — is there balm in Gilead? — tell me — tell me, I 
implore ! " 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 

" Prophet ! " said I, " thing of evil ! — prophet still, if bird 

or devil ! 
By that Heaven that bends above us — by that God we both 

adore — 
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant 

Aidenn, 
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name 

Lenore — " 
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name 

Lenore ? '' 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 

" Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend ! " I 

shrieked, upstarting — 
" Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian 

shore ! 
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath 

spoken ! 
Leave my loneliness unbroken ! — quit the bust above my 

door! 
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from 

off my door ! " 

Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sit- 
ting 
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; 



ULALUME. 33 

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is 

dreaming, 
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow 

on the floor; 
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on 

the floor 

Shall be lifted — nevermore ! 



ULALUME. 

The skies they were ashen and sober ; 

The leaves they were crisped and sere — 

The leaves they were withering and sere; 
It was night in the lonesome October 

Of my most immemorial year ; 
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, 

In the misty mid region of Weir — 
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, 

In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 

Here once, through an alley Titanic, 

Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul — 
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul. 

These were days when my heart was volcanic 
As the scoriae rivers that roll — 
As the lavas that restlessly roll 

Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek 
In the ultimate climes of the pole — 

That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek 
In the realms of the boreal pole. 

Our talk had been serious and sober. 

But our thoughts they were palsied and sere- 



34: ULALUME. 

Our memories were treacherous and sere — 
For we knew not the month was October, 

And we marked not the night of the year — 

(Ah, night of all nights in the year!) 
We noted not the dim lake of Auber — 

(Though once we had journeyed down here)- 
Eemembered not the dank tarn of Auber, 

Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 

And now, as the night was senescent 
And star-dials pointed to morn — 
As the sun-dials hinted to morn — 

At the end of our path a liquescent 
And nebulous lustre was born. 

Out of which a miraculous crescent 
Arose with a duplicate horn — 

Astart^'s bediamonded crescent 

Distinct with its duplicate horn. 

And I said — ^' She is warmer than Dian : 
She rolls through an ether of sighs — 
She revels in a region of sighs — 

She has seen that the tears are not dry on 
These cheeks, where the worm never dies, 

And has come past the stars of the Lion 
To point us the path to the skies — 
To the Lethean peace of the skies — 

Come up, in despite of the Lion, 

To shine on us with her bright eyes — 

Come up through the lair of the Lion, 
With love in her luminous eyes." 

But Psyche, uplifting her finger, 

Said — " Sadly this star I mistrust — 



tfLALUME. 35 

Her pallor I strangely mistrust : — 
Oh, hasten ! — oh, let us not linger ! 

Oh, fly ! — let us fly ! — for we must." 
In terror she spoke, letting sink her 

Wings till they trailed in the dust — 
In agony sobbed, letting sink her 

Plumes till they trailed in the dust — 

Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. 

I replied — ^' This is nothing but dreaming : 

Let us on by this tremulous light ! 

Let us bathe in this crystalline light! 
Its Sibyllic splendour is beaming 

With hope and in beauty to-night : — 

See ! — it flickers up the sky through the night ! 
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming. 

And be sure it will lead us aright — 
We safely may trust to a gleaming. 

That cannot but guide us aright. 

Since it flickers up to Heaven through the 
Night/' 

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, 
And tempted her out of her gloom — 
And conquered her scruples and gloom ; 

And we passed to the end of a vista. 

But were stopped by the door of a tomb — 
By the door of a legended tomb ; 

And I said — " What is written, sweet sister, 
On the door of this legended tomb ? " 
She replied — " Ulalume — Ulalume — 
'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume ! '' 

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober 
As the leaves that were crisped and sere — 



36 



TO HELEN. 

As the leaves that were withering and sere; 
And I cried — " It was surely October 

On this very night of last year 

That I journeyed — I journeyed down here — 

That I brought a dread burden down here ! 

On this night of all nights in the year, 

Ah, what demon has tempted me here ? 
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber — 

This misty mid region of Weir — 
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber — 

This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir." 



TO HELEN. 

I sAV(r thee once — once only — ^years ago: 

I must not say how many — but not many. 

It was a July midnight; and from out 

A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring. 

Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, 

There fell a silvery-silken veil of light. 

With quietude, and sultriness and slumber. 

Upon the upturned faces of a thousand 

Roses that grew in an enchanted garden. 

Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe — 

Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses 

That gave out, in return for the love-light. 

Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death — 

Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses 

That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted 

By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence. 

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank 

I saw thee half-reclining; while the moon 



TO HELEN. 37 

Fell on the upturned faces of the roses, 

And on thine own, upturned — alas, in sorrow ! 

Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight — 

Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow), 

That bade me pause before that garden-gate, 

To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses? 

No footstep stirred : the hated world all slept, 

Save only thee and me — (0 Heaven ! — God ! 

How my heart beats in coupling those two words !) — 

Save only thee and me. I paused — I looked — 

And in an instant all things disappeared. 

(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!) 

The pearly lustre of the moon went out : 

The mossy banks and the meandering paths. 

The happy flowers and the repining trees. 

Were seen no more : the very roses' odours 

Died in the arms of the adoring airs. 

All — all expired save thee — save less than thou: 

Save only the divine light in thine eyes — 

Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes. 

I saw but them — they were the world to me. 

I saw but them — saw only them for hours — 

Saw only them until the moon went down. 

What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten 

Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres ! 

How dark a woe ! yet how sublime a hope ! 

How silently serene a sea of pride ! 

How daring an ambition ! yet how deep — 

How fathomless a capacity for love ! 

But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight, 
Into a western couch of thunder-cloud ; 
And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees 
Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained. 



38 FOR ANNIE. 

They would not go — ^tliey never yet have gone. 
Lighting my lonely pathway home that night, 
They have not left me (as my hopes have) since. 
They follow me — they lead me through the years. 
They are my ministers — yet I their slave. 
Their office is to illuminate and enkindle — 
My duty, to he saved by their bright light, 
And purified in their electric fire. 
And sanctified in their elysian fire. 
They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope), 
And are far up in Heaven — the stars I kneel to 
In the sad, silent watches of my night ; 
While even in the meridian glare of day 
I see them still — two sweetly scintillant 
Venuses, unextinguished by the sun ! 



FOR ANNIE. 

Thank Heaven! the crisis — 
The danger is past. 

And the lingering illness 
Is over at last — 

And the fever called " Living " 
Is conquered at last. 

Sadly, I know 

I am shorn of my strength. 
And no muscle I move 

As I lie at full length — 
But no matter ! — I feel 

I am better at length. 



FOR ANNIE. 39 

'And I rest so composedly 

Now, in my bed, 
That any beholder 

Might fancy me dead — 
Might start at beholding me, 

Thinking me dead. 

The moaning and groaning, 

The sighing and sobbing, 
Are quieted now, 

With that horrible throbbing 
At heart : — Ah that horrible. 

Horrible throbbing! 

The sickness — the nausea — 

The pitiless pain — 
Have ceased with the fever 

That maddened my brain — 
With the fever called " Living " 

That burned in my brain. 

And oh ! of all tortures 

That torture the worst 
Has abated — the terrible 

Torture of thirst 
For the napthaline river 

Of passion accurst: — 
I have drunk of a water 

That quenches all thirst : — 

Of a water that flows, 

With a lullaby sound. 
From a spring but a very few 

Feet under ground — 
From a cavern not very far 

Down under ground. 



FOR ANNIE. 

And ah ! let it never 

Be foolishly said 
That my room it is gloomy 

And narrow my bed; 
For man never slept 

In a different bed — 
And, to sleep, you must slumber 

In just such a bed. 

My tantalized spirit 

Here blandly reposes, 

Forgetting, or never 

Eegretting, its roses — 

Its old agitations 

Of myrtles and roses: 

For now, while so quietly 

Lying, it fancies 
A holier odor 

About it^ of pansies — 
A rosemary odor. 

Commingled with pansies — 
With rue and the beautiful 

Puritan pansies. 

And so it lies happily, 

Bathing in many 
A dream of the truth 

And the beauty of Annie — 
Drowned in a bath 

Of the tresses of Annie. 

She tenderly kissed me, 
She fondly caressed, 



FOR ANNIE. 4-1 

And then I fell gently 

To sleep on her breast — 
Deeply to sleep 

From the heaven of her breast. 



When the light was extinguished, 
She covered me warm. 

And she prayed to the angels 
To keep me from harm — 

To the queen of the angels 

To shield me from harm. 



And I lie so composedly, 

Now, in my bed, 
(Knowing her love) 

That you fancy me dead — 
And I rest so contentedly, 

Now, in my bed, 
(With her love at my breast) 

That you fancy me dead — 
That you shudder to look at me, 

Thinking me dead. 



But my heart it is brighter 

Than all of the many 
Stars of the sky. 

For it sparkles with Annie- 
It glows with the light 

Of the love of my Annie — 
With the thought of the light 

Of the eyes of my Annie. 



42 THE BELLS. 



TO MY MOTHEE. 



Because I feel that, in the Heavens above. 

The angels, whispering to one another, 
Can find, among their burning terms of love, 

None so devotional as that of " Mother," 
Therefore by that dear name I long have called 
you— 

You who are more than mother unto me. 
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed 
you, 

In setting my Virginia's spirit free. 
My mother — my own mother, who died early. 

Was but the mother of myself; but you 
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly. 

And thus are dearer than the mother I knew 
By that infinity with which my wife 

Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life. 



THE BELLS. 

. I. 

Hear the sledges with the bells — 
Silver bells ! 
What a world of merriment their melody foretells ! 
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. 

In the icy air of night ! 
While the stars, that oversprinkle 



THE BELLS. ^ 43 

All the heavens, seem to twinkle 
With a crystalline delight ; 
Keeping time, time, time. 
In a sort of Runic Rhyme, 
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells 
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells, — 
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. 



II. 



Hear the mellow wedding bells, 
Golden bells ! 
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells ! 
Through the balmy air of night 
How they ring out their delight ! 
From the molten golden-notes, 

And all in time. 
What a liquid ditty floats 
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats 
On the moon ! 



Oh, from out the sounding cells. 

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! 

How it swells ! 

How it dwells 

On the future ! how it tells 

Of the rapture that impels 

To the swinging and the ringing 

Of the bells, bells, bells, 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells. 
Bells, bells, bells— 
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells ! 



44 THE BELLS. 



III. 



Hear the loud alarum bells — 
Brazen bells ! 
What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells ! 
In the startled ear of night 
How they scream out their affright ! 
Too much horrified to speak, 
They can only shriek, shriek, 
Out of tune, 
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, 
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire 
Leaping higher, higher, higher, 
With a desperate desire, 
And a resolute endeavour 
Now — now to sit or never. 
By the side of the pale-faced moon. 
Oh, the bells, bells, bells ! 
What a tale their terror tells 
Of Despair ! 
How they clang, and clash, and roar! 
What a horror they outpour 
On the bosom of the palpitating air ! 
Yet the ear it fully knows. 

By the twanging. 
And the clanging. 
How the danger ebbs and flows; 
Yet the ear distinctly tells, 

In the jangling, 
And the wrangling. 
How the danger sinks and swells. 
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the 
bells— 



THE BELLS. 45 

Of the bells— 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells. 
Bells, bells, bells— 
In the clamour and the clanging of the bells ! 



IV. 



Hear the tolling of the bells — 
Iron bells ! 
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels 
In the silence of the night. 
How we shiver with affright 
At the melancholy menace of their tone ! 
For every sound that floats 
From the rust within their throats 

Is a groan. 
And the people — ah, the people — 
They that dwell up in the steeple. 
All alone. 
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling, 

In that muffled monotone. 
Feel a glory in so rolling 

On the human heart a stone — 
They are neither man nor woman — 
They are neither brute nor human — 
They are Ghouls: 
And their king it is who tolls; 
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, 
Eolls 
A Paean from the bells ! 
And his merry bosom swells 
With the paean of the bells! 
And he dances, and he yells; 
Keeping time, time, time. 
In a sort of Runic rhyme. 



4-6 ANNABEL LEE. 

To the paean of the bells — 

Of the bells: 
Keeping time, time, time, 
In a sort of Eunic rhyme. 

To the throbbing of the bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells — 

To the sobbing of the bells; 
Keeping time, time, time, 

As he kneels, kneels, kneels, 
In a happy Runic rhyme, 

To the rolling of the bells — 
Of the bells, bells, bells— 
To the tolling of the bells, 
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
Bells, bells, bells — 
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. 



ANNABEL LEE. 



It was many and many a year ago, 

In a kingdom by the sea 
That a maiden there lived whom you may know 

By the name of Annabel Lee ; 
And this maiden she lived with no other thought 

Than to love and be loved by me. 



II. 



I was a child and slie was a child. 
In this kingdom by the sea, 



ANNABEL LEE. 47 

But we loved with a love that was more than love — ■ 

I and my Annabel Lee — 
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 

Coveted her and me. 



III. 



And this was the reason that, long ago, 

In this kingdom by the sea, 
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 

My beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
So that her highborn kinsmen came 

And bore her away from me, 
To shut her up in a sepulchre 

In this kingdom by the sea. 



IV. 

The angels, not half so happy in heaven, 

Went envying her and me — 
Yes ! — that was the reason (as all men know. 

In this kingdom by the sea) 
That the wind came out of the cloud by night, 

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 



But our love it was stronger by far than the love 

Of those who were older than we — 

Of many far wiser than we — 
And neither the angels in heaven above. 

Nor the demons down under the sea. 
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee : 



4,8 ELDORADO. 

VI. 

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes 

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, 

In her sepulchre there by the sea — 

In her tomb by the sounding sea. 



ELDORADO. 

Gaily bedight, 

A gallant knight, 
In sunshine and in shadow. 

Had journeyed long, 

Singing a song, 
In search of Eldorado. 

But he grew old — 
This knight so l)old — 

And o'er his heart a shadow 
Fell, as he found 
No spot of ground 

That looked like Eldorado. 

And, as his strength 
Failed him at length, 

He met a pilgrim shadow — 
" Shadow," said he, 
" Where can it be — 

This land of Eldorado?" 



ELDORADO. 49 

" Over the Mountains 

Of the Moon, 
Down the Valley of the Shadow, 

Ride, boldly ride/' 

The shade replied, 
^^ If vou seek for Eldorado ! " 



MORELLA. 



AvTO Tjad' rvTO lueB^ avrov, aovo eifieg aiei av. 
Itself, by itself solely, one everlastingly, and single. 

— Plato — Sympos. 

With a feeling of deep yet most singular affection I re- 
garded my friend Morella. Thrown by accident into her 
society many years ago, my soul, from our first meeting, 
burned with fires it had never before known ; but the fires 
were not of Eros, and bitter and tormenting to my spirit 
was the gradual conviction that I could in no manner de- 
fine their unusual meaning, or regulate their vague in- 
tensity. Yet we met; and fate bound us together at the 
altar ; and I never spoke of passion, nor thought of love. 
She however, shunned society, and, attaching herself to me 
alone, rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder; 
it is a happiness to dream. 

Morella's erudition was profound. As I hope to live, 
her talents were of no common order — her powers of mind 
were gigantic. I felt this and, in many matters, became 
her pupil. I soon, however, found that, perhaps on ac- 
count of her Presburg education, she placed before me a 
number of those mystical writings which are usually con- 
sidered the mere dross of the early German literature. 
These, for what reason I could not imagine, were her fav- 
orite and constant study — and that, in process of time 
they became my own, should be attributed to the simple 
but effectual influence of habit and example. 

51 



52 MORELLA. 

In all this, if I err not, my reason had little to do. My 
convictions, or I forget myself, were in no manner acted 
upon by the ideal, nor was any tincture of the mysticism 
which I read, to be discovered, unless I am greatly mis-: 
taken, either in my deeds or in my thoughts. Persuaded 
of this, I abandoned myself implicitly to the guidance ofi 
my wife, and entered with an unflinching heart into the 
intricacies of her studies. And then — then, when, poring! 
over forbidden pages, I felt a forbidden spirit enkindling: 
within me — would Morella place her cold hand upon my 
own, and rake up from the ashes of a dead philosophy 
some low, singular words, whose strange meaning burned 
themselves in upon my memory. And then, hour after 
hour, would I linger by her side, and dwell upon the 
music of her voice — until, at length, its melody was tainted 
with terror, — and there fell a shadow upon my soul — and 
I grew pale, and shuddered inwardly at those too unearthly 
tones. And thus, joy suddenly faded into horror, and the 
most beautiful became the most hideous, as Hinnon be- 
came the Gehenna. 

It is unnecessary to state the exact character of those 
disquisitions which, growing out of the volumes I have 
mentioned, formed, for so long a time, almost the sole con- 
versation of Morella and myself. By the learned in what 
might be termed theological morality they will be readily 
conceived, and by the unlearned they would, at all events, 
be little understood. The wild Pantheism of Fichte; the 
modified UaXLyyevecrui of Pythagoreans ; and, above all, the 
doctrines of Identity as urged by Schelling were generally 
the points of discussion presenting the most of beauty to 
the imaginative Morella. That identity which is termed 
personal, Mr. Locke, I think, truly defines to consist in the 
saneness of a rational being. And since by person we un- 
destand an intelligent essence having reason, and since 
there is a consciousness which always accompanies think- 



MORELLA. 53 

ing, it is this which makes us all to be that which we call 
ourselves — thereby distinguishing us from other beings 
that think, and giving us our personal identity. But the 
principium individuationis — the notion of that identity 
which at death is or is not lost forever — was to me, at all 
times, a consideration of intense interest; not more from 
the perplexing and exciting nature of its consequences, 
than from the marked and agitated manner in which 
Morella mentioned them. 

But, indeed, the time had now arrived when the mystery 
of my wife's manner oppressed me as a spell. I could no 
longer bear the touch of her wan fingers, nor the low tone 
of her musical language, nor the lustre of her melancholy 
eyes. And she knew all this, but did not upbraid; she 
seemed conscious of my weakness or my folly and, smiling, 
called it Fate. She seemed, also, conscious of a cause, to 
me unknown, for the gradual alienation of my regard; 
but she gave me no hint or token of its nature. Yet was 
she woman, and pined away daily. In time, the crimson 
spot settled steadily upon the cheek, and the blue veins 
upon the pale forhead became prominent ; and, one instant, 
my nature melted into pity but, in the next, I met the 
glance of her meaning eyes, and then my soul sickened and 
became giddy with the giddiness of one who gazes down- 
ward into some dreary and unfathomable abyss. 

Shall I then say that I longed with an earnest and con- 
suming desire for the moment of Morella's decease? I 
did ; but the fragile spirit clung to its tenement of clay for 
many days — for many weeks and irksome months^ — until 
my tortured nerves obtained the mastery over my mind, 
and I grew furious through delay, and with the heart of a 
fiend, cursed the days, and the hours, and the bitter mo- 
ments, which seemed to lengthen and lengthen as her 
gentle life declined — like shadows in the dying of the day. 

But one autumnal evening, when the winds lay still in 



54: MORELLA. 

heaven, Morella called me to her bedside. There was a 
dim mist over all the earth, and a warm glow upon the 
waters, and, amid the rich October leaves of the forest, a 
rainbow from the firmament had surely fallen. 

" It is a day of days," she said, as I approached ; " a 
day of all days either to live or die. It is a fair day for the 
sons of earth and life — ah, more fair for the daughters of 
heaven and death ! " 

I kissed her forehead, and she continued : 

'^I am dying, yet shall I live." 

" Morella ! " 

^' The days have never been when thou couldst love me 
— but her whom in life thou didst abhor, in death thou 
shalt adore." 

" Morella ! " 

'^ I repeat that I am dying. But within me is a pledge 
of that affection — ah, how little ! which thou didst feel for 
me, Morella. And when my spirit departs, shall the child 
live — thy child and mine, Morella's. But thy days shall 
be days of sorrow — that sorrow which is the most lasting 
of impressions, as the cypress is the most enduring of trees. 
For the hours of thy happiness are over; and Joy is not 
gathered twice in a life, as the roses of Paestum twice in a 
year. Thou shalt no longer, then, play the Teian with 
time but, being ignorant of the myrtle and the vine, thou 
shalt bear about with thee thy shroud on the earth, as do 
the Moslemin at Mecca." 

" Morella ! " I cried, " Morella ! how knowest thou 
this ? " — ^but she turned away her face upon the pillow, 
and, a slight tremor coming over her limbs, she thus died, 
and I heard her voice no more. 

Yet, as she had foretold, her child — to which in dying 
she had given birth, which breathed not until the mother 
breathed no more — her child, a daughter, lived. And she 
grew strangely in stature and intellect, and was the per- 



MORELLA. 55 

feet resemblance of her who had departed, and I loved her 
with a love more fervent than I had believed it possible 
to feel for any denizen of earth. 

But, erelong, the heaven of this pure affection became 
darkened, and gloom, and horror, and grief swept over it 
in clouds. I said the child grew strangely in stature and 
intelligence. Strange, indeed, was her rapid increase in 
bodily size — but terrible, oh ! terrible were the tumultuous 
thoughts which crowded upon me while watching the de- 
velopment of her mental being! Could it be otherwise, 
when I daily discovered in the conceptions of the child the 
adult powers and faculties of the woman? — when the 
lessons of experience fell from the lips of infancy? and 
when the wisdom or the passions of maturity I found 
hourly gleaming from its full and speculative eye ? When, 
I say, all this became evident to my appalled senses — when 
I could no longer hide it from my soul, nor throw it off 
from those perceptions which trembled to receive it — is 
it to be wondeded at that suspicions, of a nature fearful 
and exciting, crept in upon my spirit, or that my thoughts 
fell back aghast upon the wild tales and thrilling theories 
of the entombed Morella? I snatched from the scrutiny 
of the world a being whom destiny compelled me to adore, 
and in the rigorous seclusion of my home watched, with an 
agonizing anxiety over all which concerned the beloved. 

And, as years rolled away, and I gazed, day after day, 
upon her holy, and mild, and eloquent face, and pored over 
her maturing form, day after day did I discover new points 
of resemblance in the child to her mother, the melancholy 
and the dead. And, hourly, grew darker these shadows of 
similitude, and more full, and more definite, and more per- 
plexing, and more hideously terrible in their aspect. For 
that her smile was like her mother's I could bear; but 
then I shuddered at its too perfect identity. That her eyes 
were like Morella's I could endure ; but then they too often 



56 MORELLA. 

looked down into the depths of my soul with Morella's 
own intense and bewildering meaning. And in the con- 
tour of the high forehead, and in the ringlets of the silken 
hair, and in the wan fingers which buried themselves there- 
in, and in the sad musical tones of her speech, and above 
all — oh ! above all — in the phrases and expressions of the 
dead on the lips of the loved and the living, I found food 
for consuming thought and horror — for a worm that would 
not die. 

Thus passed away two lustra of her life and, as yet, my 
daughter remained nameless upon the earth. ^' My child," 
and " my love " were the designations usually prompted 
by a father's affection, and the rigid seclusion of her days 
precluded all other intercourse. Morella's name died with 
her at her death. Of the mother I had never spoken to 
the daughter; — it was impossible to speak. Indeed, dur- 
ing the brief period of her existence, the latter had received 
no impressions from the outer world, save such as might 
have been afforded by the narrow limits of her privacy. 
But at length the ceremony of baptism presented to my 
mind, in its unnerved and agitated condition, a present 
deliverance from the terrors of my destiny. And at the 
baptismal fount I hesitated for a name. And many titles 
of the wise and beautiful, of old and modern times, of my 
own and foreign lands came thronging to my lips, with 
many, many fair titles of the gentle, and the happy, and 
the good. What prompted me, then, to disturb the memory 
of the buried dead? What demon urged me to breathe 
that sound, which, in its very recollection, was wont to 
make ebb the purple blood in torrents from the temples 
to the heart? What fiend spoke form the recesses of my 
soul, when, amid those dim aisles, and in the silence of the 
night, I whispered within the ears of the holy man the 
syllables — Morella? What more than fiend convulsed the 
features of my child, and overspread them with hues of 



MORELLA. 57 

death, as starting at that scarcely audible sound, she turned 
her glassy eyes from the earth to heaven and, falling pros- 
trate on the black slabs of our ancestral vault, responded 
—"I am here!" 

Distinct, coldly, calmly distinct, fell those few simple 
sounds within my ear, and thence like molten lead, rolled 
hissingly into my brain. Years — years may pass away, 
but the memory of that epoch — never ! Nor was I indeed 
ignorant of the flowers and the vine — but the hemlock and 
the cypress overshadowed me night and day. And I kept 
no reckoning of time or place, and the stars of my fate 
faded from heaven, and therefore the earth grew dark, 
and its figures pased by me, like flitting shadows, and 
among them all I beheld only — Morella. The winds of the 
firmament breathed but one sound within my ears, and 
the ripples upon the sea murmured evermore — Morella. 
But she died; and with my own hands I bore her to the 
tomb; and I laughed with a long and bitter laugh as I 
found no traces of the first, in the charnel where I laid the 
second, Morella. 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 



Son coeur est un luth suspendu; 
Sitot qu' on le louche il r^sonne. 

— De Beranger, 

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day! 
in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung op--! 
pressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on i 
horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country,, 
and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening; 
drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. . 
I know not how it was — but, with the first glimpse of the ■ 
building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. 
I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any 
of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment with 
which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural 
images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene 
before me — upon the mere house, and the simple landscape 
features of the domain — upon the bleak walls — upon the 
vacant eye-like windows — upon a few rank sedges — and 
upon a few white trunks of decayed trees — with an utter 
depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly 
sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the 
reveller upon opium — the bitter lapse into every-day life 
— the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an ici- 
ness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart — an unredeemed 
dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagi- 
nation could torture into aught of the sublime. What was 

58 I 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 59 

it — I paused to think — what was it that so unnerved me 
in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a 
mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the 
shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I 
was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, 
that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very 
simple natural objects which have the power of thus affect- 
ing us, still the analysis of this power lies among consider- 
ations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that 
a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the 
scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to 
modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful 
impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse 
to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay 
in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down — but 
with a shudder even more thrilling than before — upon the 
remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the 
ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows. 

Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed 
to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roder- 
ick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boy- 
hood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. 
A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part 
of the country — a letter from him — which, in its wildly 
importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a per- 
sonal reply. The Ms. gave evidence of nervous agitation. 
The writer spoke of acute bodily illness — of a mental dis- 
order which oppressed him — and of an earnest desire to 
see me, as his best and indeed his only personal friend, 
with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my so- 
ciety, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner 
in which all this, and much more, was said — it was the 
apparent heart that went with his request — which allowed 
me no room for hesitation ; and I accordingly obeyed forth- 
with what I still considered a very singular summons. 



60 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 

Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, 
yet I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been 
always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that 
his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, 
for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, 
through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and 
manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet 
unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to 
the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox 
and easily recognizable beauties, of musical science. I had 
learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the 
Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth, at 
no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the 
entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had 
always, with very trifling and very temporary variations, 
so lain. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running 
over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the 
premises with the accredited character of the people, and 
while speculating upon the possible influence which the 
one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised 
upon the other — it was this deficiency, perhaps of collateral 
issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission, from 
sire to son, of the patrimony with the name, which had, 
at length, so identified the two as to merge the original 
title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation 
of the " House of Usher ^^ — an appellation which seemed 
to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, 
both the family and the family mansion. 

I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish 
experiment — that of looking down within the tarn — had 
been to deepen the first singular impression. There can be 
no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of 
my superstition — for why should I not so term it? 
served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I 
have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. Q^ 

having terror as a basis. And it might have been for this 
reason only that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the 
house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in 
my mind a strange fancy — a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, 
that I but mention it to show the vivid force of the sensa- 
tions which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my 
magination as really to believe that about the whole man- 
sion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to 
themselves and their immediate vicinity — an atmosphere 
which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which 
had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, 
and the silent tarn — a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, 
sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued. 

Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a 
dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the 
building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an 
excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been 
great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hang- 
ing in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all 
this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No 
portion of the masonary had fallen; and there appeared 
to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adap- 
tation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the indi- 
vidual stones. In this there was much that reminded me 
of the specious totality of old wood-work which has rotted 
for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance 
from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indica- 
tion of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little 
token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing 
observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, 
which, extending from the roof of the building in front, 
made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it 
became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn. 

Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to 
the house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I en- 



62 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 

tered the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy' 
step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark 
and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his 
master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, 
I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which 
I have already spoken. While the objects around me — 
while the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries off 
the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phan- 
tasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode 
were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had, been 
accustomed from my infancy— while I hesitated not to 
acknowledge how familiar was all this — I still wondered 
to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary 
images were stirring up. On one of the staircases, I met] 
the physician of the family. His countenance, I thought,.; 
wore a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity/' 
He accosted me with trepidation and passed on. The valet :! 
now threw open a door and ushered me into the presence^ 
of his master. ' ^ 

The room in which I found myself was very large and 
lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and 
at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be 
altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of en-( 
crimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, ' 
and served to render sufficiently distinct the more promi- 
nent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain 
to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses 
of the valted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung i 
upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, com- 
fortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical 
instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any 
vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere 
of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom 
hung over and pervaded all. 

Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. g3 

lad been lying at full length, and greeted me with a viva- 
dous warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of 
m overdone cordiality — of the constrained effort of the 
mnuye man of the world. A glance, however, at his coun- 
;enance convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat 
lown; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed 
ipon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, 
nan had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a 
)eriod, as had Eoderick Usher ! It was with difficulty that 
[ could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan 
)eing before me with the companion of my early boyhood, 
i^et the character of his face had been at all times remark- 
ible. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, 
iquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat 
:hin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve ; 
1 nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of 
aostril unusual in similar formations; a finely moulded 
hin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of 
moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and 
tenuity; — these features, with an inordinate expansion 
above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a coun- 
tenance not easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere 
xaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, 
and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so 
much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The 
now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous 
lustre of the eye, above all things startled and even awed 
me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all 
unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated 
rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with 
effort, connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of 
simple humanity. 

In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with 
an incoherence — an inconsistency ; and I soon found this 
to arise from a series of feeble and futile struggles to over- 



64 THE PALL OP THE HOUSE OP USHER. 

come an habitual trepidancy — an excessive nervous agita- 
tion. For something of this nature I had indeed been pre^" 
pared, no less by his letter, than by reminiscences of cer- 
tain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his 
peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His 
action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice 
varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the 
animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species 
of energetic concision — that abrupt, weighty, un-hurried, 
and hollow-sounding enunciation — that leaden, self-bal- 
anced, and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which 
may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable 
eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense ex- 
citment. 

It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of 
his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected 
me to afford him. He entered, at some length, into what 
he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he 
said, a constitutional and a family evil and one for which 
he despaired to find a remedy — a mere nervous affection, 
he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass 
off. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations. 
Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and be- 
wildered me ; although, perhaps, the terms and the general 
manner of their narration had their weight. He suffered 
much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most 
insipid food was alone endurable ; he could wear only gar- 
ments of certain mixture ; the odors of all flowers were op- 
pressive ; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light ; and 
there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed 
instruments, which did not inspire him with horror. 

To an anomalous species of terror I found him a boun- 
den slave. " I shall perish," said he, ^^ I must perish in 
this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I 
be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in them- 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. ^5 

selves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of 
any, even the most trivial incident, which may operate 
upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no 
abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect — in ter- 
ror. In this unnerved, in this pitiable condition I feel 
that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must 
abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the 
grim phantasm. Fear." 

I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken 
and equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental 
condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious im- 
pressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, 
iand whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth 
— in regard to an influence whose supposititious force was 
conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated — an 
influence which some pecularities in the mere form and 
substance of his family mansion had, by dint of long suf- 
ferance, he said, obtained over his spirit — an effect which 
the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim 
tarn into which they all looked down had, at length, 
brought about upon the morale of his existence. 

He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that 
much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could 
be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin — 
to the severe and long-continued illness — indeed to the evi- 
dently approaching dissolution — of a tenderly beloved sis- 
ter, his sole companion for long years, his last and only 
relative on earth. " Her decease,'^ he said, with a bitter- 
ness which I can never forget, ^^ would leave him (him, the 
hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the 
Ushers." While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was 
she called) passed through a remote portion of the apart- 
jnent and, without having noticed my presence, disap- 
peared. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not 
unmingled with dread ; and yet I found it impossible to ac- 



QQ THE FALL OP THE HOUSE OF USHER. 

count for such feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed 
me as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a door, 
at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively 
and eagerly the countenance of the brother; but he had 
buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive 
that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the 
emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate 
tears. 

The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill 
of her physician. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting 
away of the person, and frequent although transient affec- 
tions of a partially cataleptical character were the unusual 
diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the 
pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself finally 
to bed ; but on the closing in of the evening of my arrival 
at the house she succumbed (as her brother told me at 
night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating 
power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I 
had obtained of her person would thus probably be the last 
I should obtain — that the lad}^, at least while living, would 
be seen by me no more. 

For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by 
either Usher or myself; and during this period I was 
busied in earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of 
my friend. We painted and read together, or I listened, 
as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking 
guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy 
admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his 
spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all 
attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an 
inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of 
the moral and physical universe in one unceasing radiation 
of gloom. 

I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn 
hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. Q^ 

Usher. Yet I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea 
of the exact character of the studies, or of the occupa- 
tions, in which he involved me, or led me the way. An 
excited and highly distempered ideality threw a sulphur- 
eous lustre over all. His long improvised dirges will ring 
forever in my ears. Among other things, I hold painfully 
in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification 
of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From 
the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, 
and which grew, touch by touch, into vagueness at 
which I shuddered the more thrillingly, because I shud- 
dered knowing not why — from these paintings (vivid as 
their images now are before me) I would in vain endeavor 
to educe more than a small portion which should lie with- 
in the compass of merely written words. By the utter 
simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and 
overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that 
mortal was Eoderick Usher. For me at least, in the cir- 
cumstances then surrounding me, there arose out of the 
pure abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to 
•^hrow upon his canvas, an intensity of intolerable awe, no 
shadow of which felt I ever yet in the contemplation of the 
certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of Fuseli. 

One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, 
partaking not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be 
shadowed forth, although feebly, in words. A small pic- 
ture presented the interior of an immensely long and rec- 
tangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white 
md without interruption or device. Certain accessory- 
points of the design served well to convey the idea that this 
xcavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of 
the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of its 
vast extent, and no torch or other artificial source of light 
was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled through 



/ 



63 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 

out, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate 
splendor. 

I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the audi- 
tory nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the 
sufferer, with the exception of certain effects of stringed 
instruments. It was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which 
he thus confined himself upon the guitar which gave birth, 
in great measure, to the fantastic character of his perform- 
ances. But the fervid facility of his impromptus could I 
not be so accounted for. They must have been, and were, 
in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasias 
(for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with 
rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that intense 
mental collectedness and concentration to which I have.^ 
previously alluded as observable only in particular mO' 
ments of the highest artificial excitement. The words off 
one of these rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was| 
perhaps, the more forcibly impressed with it as he gave it,' 
because, in the under or mystic current of its meaning. If 
fancied that I perceived, and for the first time, a full con- 
sciousness on the part of Usher of the tottering of his lofty 
reason upon her throne. The verses, which were entitled!' 
'^ The Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if not accurately,! 
thus : — 



In the greenest of our valleys, 

By good angels tenanted, 
Once a fair and stately palace — 

Radiant palace — reared its head. 
In the monarch Thought's dominion — 

It stood there! 
Never seraph spread a pinion 

Over fabric half so fair. 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 



II. 



Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 

On its roof did float and flow 
(This — all this — was in the olden 

Time long ago) ; 
And every gentle air that dallied, 

In that sweet day. 
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 

A winged odor went away. 

III. 

Wanderers in that happy valley 

Through two luminous windows saw 
Spirits moving musically 

To a lute's well-tuned law; 
Round about a throne, where sitting 

( Porphyrogene ! ) 
In state his glory well befitting, 

The ruler of the realm was seen. 



IV. 



And all with pearl and ruby glowing 

Was the fair palace door. 
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing 

And sparkling evermore, 
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty 

Was but to sing, 
In voices of surpassing beauty. 

The wit and wisdom of their king. 



V. 



But evil things, in robes of sorrow, 
Assailed the monarch's high estate; 

(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow 
Shall dawn upon him, desolate ! ) 



70 ^HE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 

And, round about his home, the glory- 
That blushed and bloomed 

Is but a dim-remembered story 
Of the old time entombed. 



VI. 

And travellers now within that valley. 

Through the red-litten windows see 
Vast forms that move fantastically 

To a discordant melody; 
While, like a rapid ghastly river, 

Through the pale door, 
A hideous throng rush out forever. 

And laugh — but smile no more. 

I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad 
led us into a train of thought wherein there became mani- 
fest an opinion of Usher^s which I mention not so much 
on account of its novelty (for other men* have thought 
thus), as on account of the pertinacity with which he 
maintained it. This opinion, in its general form, was that 
of the sentience of all vegetable things. But, in his dis- 
ordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring charac- i 
ter and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the 
kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the i 
full extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. The 
belief, however, w^as connected (as I have previously 
hinted) with the gray stones of the home of his fore- 
fathers. The conditions of the sentience had been here, he 
imagined, fulfilled in the method of collocation of these 
stones — in the order of their arrangement, as well as in 
that of the many fungi which overspread them, and of 
the decayed trees which stood around — above all, in the 

*Watson, Dr. Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop 
of LandafF. — see " Chemical Essays," vol. v. 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 71 

long undisturbed endurance of this arrangement, and in its 
reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its evidence 
— the evidence of the sentience — was to be seen, he said 
(and I here started as he spoke), in the gradual yet cer- 
tain condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the 
waters and the walls. The result was discoverable, lie 
added, in that silent yet importunate and terrible influence 
which for centuries had moulded the destinies of his 
family, and which made him what I now saw him — what 
he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I will make 
none. 

Our books — the books which, for years, had formed no 
small portion of the mental existence of the invalid — 
were, as might be supposed, in strict keeping with this 
character of phantasm. We pored together over such 
works as the " Ververt et Chartreuse " of Gresset ; the 
'^ Belphegor " of Macchiavelli ; the " Heaven and Hell " of 
Swedenborg ; the " Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas 
Klimm " by Holberg ; the " Chiromancy " of Robert 
Fludd, of Jean D' Indagine, and of de la Chambre; the 
*' Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck " ; and the 
" City of the Sun of Campanella.'' One favorite volume 
was a small octavo edition of the " Directorium Inquisi- 
torium,^' by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne ; and there 
were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African 
Satyrs and (Egipans, over which Usher would sit dream- 
ing for hours. His chief delight, however, was found in 
the perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious book in 
quarto Gothic — ^the manual of a forgotten church — the 
YigilicB Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecdesice Magun- 
tince. 

I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, 
and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, 
when, one evening, having informed me abruptly that the 
lady Madeline was no more, he stated his intention of pre- 



72 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 

serving her corpse for a fortnight (previously to its final 
interment), in one of the numerous vaults within the main 
walls of the building. The worldly reason, however, as- 
signed for this singular proceeding, was one which I did 
not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother had been led 
to his resolution (so he told me) by consideration of the 
unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain 
obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical 
men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial- 
ground of the family. I will not deny that when I called 
to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met 
upon the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, 
I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as at best but a 
harmless, and by no means an unnatural, precaution. 

At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the 
arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body 
having been encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. 
The vault in which we placed it (and which had been so 
long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its op- 
pressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for investi- 
gation) was small, damp, and entirely without means of 
admission for light; lying, at great depth, immediately 
beneath that portion of the building in which was my own 
sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in re- 
mote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon- 
keep and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, 
or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion of 
its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through 
which we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. 
The door, of massive iron, had been, also, similarly pro- 
tected. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp, 
grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges. 

Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels 
within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the 
yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 73 

of the tenant. A striking similitude between the brother 
and sister now first arrested my attention ; and Usher, di- 
vining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few 
words from which I learned that the deceased and himself 
had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelli- 
gible nature had always existed between them. Our 
glances, however, rested not long upon the dead — for we 
could not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus 
entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as 
usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, 
the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, 
and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which 
is so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed down 
the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, made our 
way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of 
the upper portion of the house. 

And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an 
observable change came over the features of the mental 
disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. 
His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten. 
He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, un- 
equal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance 
had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue — but the lum- 
inousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once oc- 
casional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a 
tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually char- 
acterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I 
thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with 
some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for 
the necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to 
resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, 
for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in 
an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to 
some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condi- 
tion terrified — that it infected me. I felt creeping upon 



74 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 

me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his 
own fantastic yet impressive superstitions. 

It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night 
of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady 
Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full 
power of such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch — 
while the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to 
reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. 
I endeavored to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, 
was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furni- 
ture of the room — of the dark and tattered draperies, 
which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tem- 
pest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled 
uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts 
were fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually per- 
vaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very 
heart an incubus of utterly causeless alann. Shaking this 
off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the 
pillows and, peering earnestly within the intense dark- 
ness of the chamber, hearkened — I know not why, except 
that an instinctive spirit prompted me — to certain low and 
indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the 
storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered 
by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet un- 
endurable, I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt 
that I should sleep no more during the night), and endeav- 
ored to arouse myself from the pitiable condition into 
which I had fallen by pacing rapidly to and fro through 
the apartment. 

I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light 
step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I 
presently recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant 
afterward he rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and 
entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, 
cadaverously wan — ^but, moreover, there was a species of 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 75 

mad hilarity in his eyes — an evidently restrained hysteria 
in his whole demeanor. His air appalled me — but any 
thing was preferable to the solitude which I had so long 
endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief. 

" And you have not seen it ? " he said abruptly, after 
having stared about him for some moments in silence — 
^' you have not then seen it ? — but, stay ! you shall." Thus 
speaking, and having carefully shaded his lamp, he hur- 
ried to one of the casements, and threw it freely open to the 
storm. 

The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted 
us from our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly 
beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and 
its beauty. A whirlwind had apparently collected its force 
in our vicinity ; for there were frequent and violent alter- 
ations in the direction of the wind; and the exceeding 
density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press upon 
the turrets of the house) did not prevent our perceiving 
the life-like velocity with which they flew careering from 
all points against each other, without passing away into 
the distance. I say that even their exceeding density did 
not prevent our perceiving this — yet we had no glimpse of 
the moon or stars, nor was there any flashing forth of the 
lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses of 
agitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects immedi- 
ately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a 
faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation 
which hung about and enshrouded the mansion. 

*^ You must not — you shall not behold this ! " said I, 
shuddering, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, 
from the window to a seat. "These appearances, which 
bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncom- 
mon — or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in 
the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close this casement ; 
— ^the air is chilling and dangerous to your frame. Here 



76 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 

is one of your favorite romances. I will read, and you 
shall listen: — and so we will pass away this terrible night 
together.'' 

The antique volume which I had taken up was the ^^ Mad 
Trisf of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a 
favorite of Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest; for, 
in truth, there is little in its uncouth and unimaginative 
prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty and 
spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only 
book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope 
that the excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, 
might find relief (for the history of mental disorder is full 
of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly 
which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by the 
wild overstrained air of vivacity with which he hearkened, 
or apparently hearkened, to the words of the tale, I might 
well have congratulated myself upon the success of my 
design. 

I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story 
where Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in 
vain for peaceable admission into the dwelling of the her- 
mit, proceeds to make good an entrance by force. Here, 
it will be remembered, the words of the narrative ran thus : 

" And Ethelred, who was by nature of a- doughty heart, 
and who was now mighty withal, on account of the power- 
fulness of the wine which he had drunken, waited no 
longer to hold parley with the hermit, who, in sooth, was 
of an obstinate and maliceful turn, but feeling the rain 
upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest, 
uplifted his mace outright and, with blows, made quickly j 
room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted hand ; ,! 
and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and 
ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and 
hoUow-saunding wood alarumed and reverberated through- 
out the forest." 



THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 77 

At the termination of this sentence I started and, for a 
moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I at 
once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me) — it 
appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the 
mansion, there came, indistinctly to my ears, what might 
have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo 
(but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking 
and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly 
described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone 
which had arrested my attention ; for, amid the rattling of 
the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary commingled 
noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in itself, 

fiad nothing, surely, which should have interested or dis- 
urbed me. I continued the story: 

" But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within 
the door, was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no sig- 
nal of the maliceful hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a 
dragon of a scaly and prodigious demeanor, and of a fiery 
itongue, which sate in guard before a palace of gold, with 
a floor of silver ; and upon the wall there hung a shield of 
shining brass with this legend enwritten — 

Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin; 
Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win. 

And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head 
of the dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty 
breath, with a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so 
piercing, that Ethelred had fain to close his ears with his 
tiands against the dreadful noise of it, the like whereof 
was never before heard." 

Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a, feeling 
of wild amazement — for there could be no doubt whatever 
that, in this instance, I did actually hear (although from 
what direction it proceeded I found it impossible to say) 



78 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 

a low and apparently distant^, but harsh, protracted, andlj 
most unusual screaming or grating sound — the exact coun- 
terpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the 
dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the romancer. 

Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of the 
second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand 
conflicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme ter- 
ror were predominant, I still retained sufficient presence 
of mind to avoid exciting, by an observation, the sensitive 
nervousness of my companion. I was by no means certain 
that he had noticed the sounds in question; although, as- 
suredly, a strange alteration had, during the last few 
minutes, taken place in his demeanor. From a position 
fronting my own, he had gradually brought round his 
chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber; 
and thus I could but partially perceive his features, al- 
though I saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmur- 
ing inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his breast — yet 
I knew that he was not asleep, from the wide and rigid 1 
opening of the eye as I caught a glance of it in profile.. 
The motion of his body, too, was at variance with this ideail 
— for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant 
and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of alU 
this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot, which thus 
proceeded : 

*^ And now, the champion, having escaped from the ter- 
rible fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen 
shield, and of the breaking up of the enchantment which 
was upon it, removed the carcass from out of the way be- 
fore him, and approached valorously over the silver pave- 
ment of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall; 
which in sooth tarried not for his full coming, but fell 
down at his feet upon the silver floor, with a mighty great 
and terrible ringing sound.'' 

No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than — as 



THE FALL OP THE HOUSE OP USHER. ^79 

if a shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen 
heavily upon a floor of silver — I became aware of a dis- 
tinct, hollow, metallic, and clangorous, yet apparently 
muffled, reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leaped to 
my feet ; but the measured rocking movement of Usher was 
undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His 
eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his 
whole countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as 
I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong 
shudder over his whole person; a sickly smile quivered 
about his lips ; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, 
and gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my presence. 
Bending closely over him I at length drank in the hideous 
import of his words. 

" Not hear it ? — yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long 
— long — long — many minutes, many hours, many days, 
have I heard it^ — yet I dared not — oh, pity me, miserable 
wretch that I am ! — I dared not — I dared not speak ! We 
have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my 
senses were acute? I now tell you that I heard her first 
feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them — 
many, many days ago — yet I dared not — / dared not speak! 
And now — to-night — Ethelred — ha ! ha ! — the breaking of 
the hermit's door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the 
clangor of the shield — say, rather, the rending of her coffin, 
and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her 
struggles within the coppered archway of the vault ! Oh ! 
whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she 
not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not 
heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish 
that heavy and horrible beating of her heart ? Madman ! " 
— here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his 
syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul — 
*' Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the 
door!'' 



80 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 

As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there! 
had been found the potency of a spell, the huge antiques 
panels to which the speaker pointed threw slowly back,i 
upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was 
the work of the rushing gust — but then without those doors 
there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady 
Madeline Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, J 
and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every por-- 
tion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she re-J 
mained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the thresh- 
old — then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward 
upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now 
final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a 
victim to the terrors he had anticipated. 

From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled 
aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I 
found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there 
shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see 
whence a gleam so unusual could have issued, for the vast 
house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radi- 
ance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, 
which now shone vividly through that once barely discerni- 
ble fissure, of which I have before spoken as extending 
from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the 
base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened — there 
came a fierce breath of the whirlwind — ^the entire orb of 
the satellite burst at once upon my sight — my brain reeled 
as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder — there was a 
long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thou- 
sand waters — and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed 
sullenly and silently over the fragments of the '' House of 
Usher/' 



THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. 



The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. 
N"o pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood 
was its Avatar and its seal — the redness and the horror of 
blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and 
then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The 
scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face 
of the victim were the pest ban which shut him out from 
the aid and from the sympathy of h\s fellow-men. And 
the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the ,disease 
were the incidents of half an hour. 

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and 
sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he 
summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light- 
hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his 
court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one 
of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and 
magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own 
eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled 
it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having 
entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded 
the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress 
nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy 
from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With 
such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to con- 
tagion. The external world could take care of itself. In 
the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The 

81 



g2 THE MASQUE OP THE RED DEATH. 

prince had provided all the appliances of pleasi re. There 
were buffoons, there were improvisator i, there w?re ballet- 
dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was 
wine. All these and security were within. Without was 
the " Red Death." 

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of 
his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furi- 
ously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his 
thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual 
magnificence. 

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first 
let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were 
seven — an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such 
suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding 
doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that 
the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here 
the case was very different; as might have been expected 
from the duke's love of the bizarre. The apartments were 
so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little 
more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every 
twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. 
To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall 
and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corri- 
dor which pursued the windings of the suite. These win- 
dows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance 
with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber 
into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was 
hung, for example, in blue — and vividly blue were its win- 
dows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments 
and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third 
was green throughout, and so were the casements. The 
fourth was furnished and lighted with orange — the fifth 
with white — the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment 
was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung 
all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy 



THE MASQUE OP THE RED DEATH. 83 

folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in 
this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to cor- 
respond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet 
— a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apart- 
ments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the pro- 
fusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro 
or depended from the roof. There was no light of any 
kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of 
chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, 
there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bear- 
ing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the 
tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And 
thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic ap- 
pearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect 
of the firelight that streamed upon the dark hangings 
through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly in the extreme, 
and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of 
those who entered, that there were few of the company 
3old enough to set foot within its precincts at all. 

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against 
the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum 
swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; 
and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, 
and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the 
brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud 
and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a 
note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the 
musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, mo- 
mentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound ; 
and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions ; and 
there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; 
and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was ob- 
served that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and 
sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused 
revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully 



g4 THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. 

ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly ; the 
musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their 
own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, 
each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should 
produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the 
lapse of sixty minutes (which embrace three thousand and 
six hundred seconds of the Time that flies), there came 
yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same 
disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before. 

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnifi- 
cent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had 
a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora 
of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his 
conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some 
who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that 
he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch 
him to be sui'e he was not. 

He had directed, in great part, the movable embellish- 
ments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great 
fete; and it was his own guiding taste, which had given 
character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were gro- 
tesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy 
and phantasm — much of what has been since seen in 
" Hernani." There were arabesque figures with unsuited 
limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies 
such as the madman fashions. There were much of the 
beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, 
something of the terrible, and not a little of that which 
might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven 
chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. 
And these — ^the dreams — writhed in and about, taking 
hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the 
orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, 
there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of 
the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all 



THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. 85 

is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff- 
frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime- die away 

-they have endured but an instant — and a light, half- 
subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And 
now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and 
writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from 
the many-tinted windows through which stream the rays 
from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most 
westwardly of the seven there are now none of the maskers 
who venture; for the night is waning away; and there 
flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes ; and 
the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him 
whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from 
the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly em- 
phatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in 
the more remote gaieties of the other apartments. 

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and 
in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel 
went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the 
sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music 
ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers 
were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all 
things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be 
sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, 
perhaps that more of thought crept, with more of time, 
into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who 
revelled. And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before 
the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into 
silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had 
found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked 
figure which had arrested the attention of no single indi- 
vidual before. And the rumor of this new presence having 
spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length 
from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of 



86 THE MASQUE OP THE RED DEATH. 

disapprobation and surprise — then, finally, of terror, of 
horror, and of disgust. 

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it 
may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could 
have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade 
license of the night was nearly unlimited ; but the figure in 
question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the 
bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There are 
chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be 
touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to 
whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters 
of which no jest can be made. The whole company, in- 
deed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and 
bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. 
The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to 
foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which con- 
cealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the coun- 
tenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must 
have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all 
this might have bfeen endured, if not approved, by the mad 
revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to 
assume the type of the Eed Death. His vesture was dab- 
bled in Hood — and his broad brow, with all the features 
of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror. 

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral 
image (which, with a slow and solemn movement, as if 
more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the 
waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment 
with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in 
the next, his brow reddened with rage. 

" Who dares '' — ^he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers 
who stood near him — " who dares insult us with this blas- 
phemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him — that we 
may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the 
battlements ! '' 



THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. 87 

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the 
Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang 
throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly, for the 
prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had be- 
some hushed at the waving of his hand. 

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a 
group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, 
there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the 
direction of the intruder, who, at the moment was also 
Qear at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, 
made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain 
nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mum- 
mer had inspired the whole party, there were found none 
who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he 
passed within a yard of the prince's person ; and, while the 
vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the 
centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way unin- 
terruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step 
which had distinguished him from the first, through the 
blue chamber to the purple — through the purple to the 
green through the green to the orange — through this 
again to the white — and even thence to the violet, ere a 
decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was 
then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with 
rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, 
rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none 
followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized 
upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had ap- 
j i'oached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet 
of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained 
the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and 
confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry — and the 
dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon 
which, instantly afterward, fell prostrate in death the 
Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of 



88 THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. 

despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves 
into the black apartment, and seizing the mummer, whose j 
tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow 
of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding 
the grave cerements and corpse-like mask, which they 
handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any 
tangible form. 

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Eedl 
Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one' 
by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of ' 
their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his-' 
fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that; 
of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods ex- 
pired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held 
illimitable dominion over all. 



ELEONORA. 



Sub conservatione forraae specificae salva anima. 

— Raymond Lully. 

I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor 
of passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is 
not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest 
intelligence — whether much that is glorious — whether all 
that is profound — does not spring from disease of thought 
— from moods of mind exalted at the expense of gen- 
eral intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of 
many things which escape those who dream only by night. 
In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, 
and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the 
verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn some- 
thing of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the 
mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, how- 
ever rudderless or compassless into the vast ocean of the 
'' light ineffable," and again, like the adventures of the 
Nubian geogprapher, " agressi sunt mare tenehrarum, quid 
in eo esset exploraturi/' 

We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that 
there are two distinct conditions of my mental existence — 
the condition of a lucid reason, not to be disputed, and be- 
longing to the memory of events forming the first epoch 
of my life — and a condition of shadow and doubt, apper- 

89 



90 ELEONORA. 

taining to the present, and to the recollection of what con- 
stitutes the second great era of my being. Therefore, 
what I shall tell of the earlier period, believe ; and to what 
I may relate of the later time, give only such credit as 
may seem due; or doubt it altogether; or, if doubt it ye 
cannot, then play unto its riddle the Oedipus. 

She whom I loved in youth, and of whom I now pen 
calmly and distinctly these remembrances, was the sole 
daughter of the only sister of my mother long departed. 
Eleonora was the name of my cousin. We had always 
dwelled together, beneath a tropical sun, in the Valley of 
the Many-Colored Grass. No unguided footstep ever came 
upon that vale; for it lay far away up among a range of 
giant hills that hung beetling around about it, shutting 
out the sunlight from its sweetest recesses. No path was 
trodden in its vicinity; and, to reach our happy home, 
there was need of putting back, with force, the foliage of 
many thousands of forest trees, and of crushing to death 
the glories of many millions of fragrant flowers. Thus it 
was that we lived all alone, knowing nothing of the world 
without the valley, — I, and my cousin, and her mother. 

From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the 
upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a nar- 
row and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of 
Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in mazy courses, 
it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge, among 
hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We 
called it the ^^ River of Silence ; " for there seemed to be 
a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur arose from its 
bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the pearly 
pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its 
bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, 
each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever. 

The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivu- 
lets that glided through devious ways into its channel, as 



ELEONORA. 91 

jvell as the spaces that extended from the margins away 
iown into the depths of the streams until they reached the 
Ded of pebbles at the bottom, — these spots, not less than 
;he whole surface of the valley, from the river to the moun- 
:ains that girdled it in, were carpeted all by a soft green 
^rass, thick, short, perfectly even, and vanilla-perfumed, 
3ut so besprinkled througout with the yellow buttercup, 
;he white daisy, the purple violet, and the ruby-red aspho- 
iel, that its exceeding beauty spoke to our hearts in loud 
ones, of the love and of the glory of God. 

And, here and there, in groves about this grass, like 
tvildernesses of dreams, sprang up fantastic trees, whose 
:all slender stems stood not upright, but slanted gracefully 
toward the light that peered at noon-day into the centre 
Df the valley. Their bark was speckled with the vivid 
ilternate splendor of ebony and silver, and was smoother 
:han all save the cheeks of Eleonora; so that, but for the 
brilliant green of the huge leaves that spread from their 
summits in long, tremulous lines, dallying with the 
Zephyrs, one might have fancied them giant serpents of 
Syria doing homage to their Sovereign the Sun. 

Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed 
[ with Eleonora before Love entered within our hearts. It 
was one evening at the close of the third lustrum of her 
life, and of the fourth of my own, that we sat, locked in 
Bach other's embrace, beneath the serpent-like trees, and 
looked down within the waters of the River of Silence at 
our images therein. We spoke no words during the rest of 
that sweet day ; and our words even upon the morrow were 
tremulous and few. We had drawn the god Eros from 
that wave, and now we felt that he had enkindled within 
us the fiery souls of our forefathers. The passions which 
had for centuries distinguished our race, came thronging 
with the fancies for which they had been equally noted, 
and together breathed a delirious bliss over the Valley of 



92 ELEONORA. 

the Many-Colored Grass. A change fell upon all things. 
Strange, brilliant flowers, star-shaped, burst out upon the'^ 
trees where no flowers had been known before. The tints^ 
of the green carpet deepened; and when, one by one, the 
white daisies shrank away, there sprang up in place of 
them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life arose 
in our paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with 
all gay glowing birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before 
us. The golden and silver fish haunted the river, out of! 
the bosom of which issued, little by little, a murmur that 
swelled, at length, into a lulling melody more divine thani 
that of the harp of ^olus — sweeter than all save the voice 
of Eleonora. And now, too, a voluminous cloud, which 
we had long watched in the regions of Hesper, floated out! 
thence, all gorgeous in crimson and gold, and settling in 
peace above us, sank, day by day, lower and lower, until its 
edges rested upon the tops of the mountains, turning all 
their dimness into magnificence, and shutting us up, as if fj 
forever, within a magic prison-house of grandeur and off 
glory. 

The lovelines of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim; 
but she was a maiden artless and innocent as the brief life 
she had led among the flowers. No guile disguised the 
fervor of love which animated her heart, and she examined 
with me its inmost recesses as we walked together in the 
Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, and discoursed of the 
mighty changes which had lately taken place therein. 

At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last 
sad change which must befall Humanity, she thencefor- 
ward dwelt only upon this one sorrowful theme, interweav- 
ing it into all our converse, as, in the songs of the bard of 
Schiraz, the same images are found occurring, again and 
again, in every impressive variation of phrase. 

She had seen that the finger of Death was upon her 
bosom — that, like the ephemeron, she had been made per- 



ELEONORA. 93 

feet in loveliness only to die ; but the terrors of the grave 
to her lay solely in a consideration which she revealed to 
me, one evening at twilight, by the banks of the Eiver of 
Silence. She grieved to think that, having entombed her 
in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, I would quit 
forever its happy recesses, transferring the love which now 
was so passionately her own to some maiden of the outer 
and every-day world. And, then and there, I threw myself 
hurriedly at the feet of Eleonora, and offered up a vow, to 
herself and to Heaven, that I would never bind myself in 
marriage to any daughter of Earth — that I would in no 
manner prove recreant to her dear memory, or to the mem- 
ory of the devout affection with which she had blessed me. 
And I called the Mighty Euler of the Universe to witness 
the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I 
invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Helusion should I 
prove traitorous to that promise, involved a penalty the 
exceeding great horror of which will not permit me to make 
record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew 
brighter at my words; and she sighed as if a deadly bur- 
then had been taken from her breast; and she trembled 
and very bitterly wept; but she made acceptance of the 
vow, (for what was she but a child?) and it made easy 
to her the bed of her death. And she said to me, not many 
days afterward, tranquilly dying, that, because of what I 
had done for the comfort of her spirit she would watch 
over me in that spirit when departed, and, if so it were 
permitted her, return to me visibly in the watches of the 
night; but, if this thing were, indeed, beyond the power 
of the souls in Paradise, that she would, at least, give me 
frequent indications of her presence; sighing upon me in 
the evening winds, or filling the air which I breathed with 
perfume from the censers of the angels. And, with these 
words upon her lips, she yielded up her innocent life, put- 
ting an end to the first epoch of my own. 



94 ELEONORA. 

Thus far I have faithfuly said. But as I pass the bar- 
rier in Time's path, formed by the death of my beloved, 
and proceed with the second era of my existence, I feel 
that a shadow gathers over my brain, and I mistrust the 
perfect sanity of the record. But let me on. — Years 
dragged themselves along heavily, and still I dwelled with- 
in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass; but a second 
change had come upon all things. The star-shaped flowers 
shrank into the stems of the trees, and appeared no more. 
The tints of the green carpet faded; and, one by one, the 
ruby-red asphodels withered away; and there sprang up, 
in place of them, ten by ten, dark, eye-like violets, that 
writhed uneasily and were ever encumbered with dew. 
And Life departed from our paths; for the tall flamingo 
flaunted no longer his scarlet plumage before us, but flew 
sadly from the vale into the hills, with all the gay glowing 
birds that had arrived in his company. And the golden 
and silver fish swam down through the gorge at the lower 
end of our domain and bedecked the sweet river never 
again. And the lulling melody that had been softer than 
the wind-harp of ^olus, and more divine than all save the 
voice of Eleonora, it died little by little away, in murmurs 
growing lower and lower, until the stream returned, at 
length, utterly, into the solemnity of its original silence. 
And then, lastly, the voluminous cloud uprose and, aban- 
doning the tops of the mountains to the dimness of old, 
fell back into the regions of Hesper, and took away all its 
manifold golden and gorgeous glories from the Valley of 
the Many-Colored Grass. 

Yet the promises of Eleonora were not forgotten; for 
I heard the sounds of the swinging of the censers of the 
angels; and streams of a holy perfume floated ever and 
ever about the valley; and at lone hours, when my heart 
beat heavily, the winds that bathed my brow came unto me 
laden with soft sighs ; and indistinct murmurs filled often 



ELEONORA. 95 

;he night air ; and once — oh, but once only ! I was awak- 
ened from a slumber, like the slumber of death, by the 
Dressing of spiritual lips upon my own. 

But the void within my heart refused, even thus, to be 
illed. I longed for the love which had before filled it to 
overflowing. At length the valley pained me through its 
memories of Eleonora, and I left it forever for the vanities 
md the turbulent triumphs of the world. 



I found myself within a strange city, where all things 
might have served to blot from recollection the sweet 
ireams I had dreamed so long in the Valley of the Many- 
Colored Grass. The pomps and pageantries of a stately 
30urt, and the mad clangor of arms, and the radiant love- 
liness of women, bewildered and intoxicated my brain, 
but as yet my soul had proved true to its vows, and the 
indications of the presence of Eleonora were still given me 
in the silent hours of the night. Suddenly these mani- 
festations ceased, and the world grew dark before mine 
eyes, and I stood aghast at the burning thoughts which 
possessed, at the terrible temptations which beset me; for 
there came from some far, far distant and unknown land, 
into the gay court of the king I served, a maiden to whose 
beauty my whole recreant heart yielded at once — at whose 
footstool I bowed down without a struggle, in the most 
ardent, in the most abject worship of love. What, indeed, 
was my passion for the young girl of the valley in compari- 
son with the fervor, and the delirium, and the spirit-lift- 
ing ecstasy of adoration with which I poured out my whole 
soul in tears at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde ? Oh, 
bright was the seraph Ermengarde ! and in that knowledge 
I had room for none other. Oh, divine was the angel 
Ermengarde ! and as I looked down into the depths of her 
memorial eyes, I thought only of them — and of her. 



96 ELEONORA. 

I wedded, — nor dreaded the curse I liad invoked; and 
its bitterness was not visited upon me. And once — but 
once again in the silence of the night— there came through 
my lattice the soft sighs which had forsaken me; and they 
modelled themselves into familiar and sweet voice, saying: 

'^ Sleep in peace ! for the Spirit of Love reigneth and 
ruleth and, in taking to thy passionate heart her who is 
Ermengarde, thou art absolved, for reasons which shall be 
made known to thee in Heaven, of thy vows unto 
Eleonora." 



THE GOLD-BUa. 



What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad! 
He hath been bitten by the Tarantula. 

—All in the Wrong. 

Many years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. 
Villiam Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot 
amily, and had once been wealthy; but a series of mis- 
ortunes had reduced him to want. To avoid the morti- 
ication consequent upon his disasters, he left New Or- 
eans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his residence 
,t Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina. 

This island is a very singular one. It consists of little 
ilse than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its 
-.readth at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is 
;eparated from the mainland by a scarcely perceptible 
3reek, oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and 
dime, a favorite resort of the marsh-hen. The vegetation, 
IS might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No 
:rees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the western 
extremity, where Fort Moultrie stands, and where are 
5ome miserable frame buildings, tenanted, during summer, 
oj the fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may be 
bund, indeed, the bristly palmetto ; but the whole island, 
with the exception of this western point, and a line of 
hard, white beach on the sea-coast, is covered with a dense 
undergrowth of the sweet myrtle so much prized by the 
horticulturists of England. The shrub here often attains 

97 



98 THE GOLD-BUG. 

the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost I 
impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with its fra- 
grance. 

In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from thei 
eastern or more remote end of the island, Legrand had 
built himself a small hut, which he occupied when I first, 
by mere accident, made his acquaintance. This sooni 
ripened into friendship — for there was much in the re-^J 
cluse to excite interest and esteem. I found him well edu- 
cated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected withi 
misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate; 
enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many 
books, but rarely employed them. His chief amusements^ 
were gunning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach i 
and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or entomologi-- 
cal specimens — his collection of the latter might have beeni 
envied by a Swammerdamm. In these excursions he wasj 
usually accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who^ 
had been manumitted before the reverses of the family J 
but who could be induced neither by threats nor by prom- 1 
ises, to abandon what he considered his right of attendance - 
upon the footsteps of his young " Massa Will." It is not 
improbable that the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him 
to be somewhat unsettled in intellect, had contrived to 
instil this obstinacy into Jupiter, with a view to the super- 
vision and guardianship of the wanderer. 

The winters in the latitude of Sullivan's Island are 
seldom very severe, and in the fall of the year it is a rare 
event indeed w^hen a fire is considered necessary. About 
the middle of October, 18 — , there occurred, however, a 
day of remarkable chilliness. Just before sunset I scram- 
bled my way through the evergreens to the hut of my 
friend, whom I had not visited for several weeks — my resi- 
dence being, at that time, in Charleston, a distance of nine 
miles from the island, while the facilities of passage and 



THE GOLD-BUG. 99 

e-passage were very far behind those of the present day. 
Jpon reaching the hut I rapped, as was my custom, and 
,^etting no reply, sought for the key where I knew it was 
ecreted, unlocked the door, and went in. A fine fire was 
)lazing upon the hearth. It was a novelty, and by no 
neans an ungrateful one. I threw off an overcoat, took 
m arm-chair by the crackling logs, and awaited patiently 
he arrival of my hosts. 

Soon after dark they arrived, and gave me a most cordial 
velcome. Jupiter, grinning from ear to ear, bustled about 
•,o prepare some marsh-hens for supper. Legrand was in 
me of his fits— how else shall I term them?— of enthusi- 
ism. He had found an unknown bivalve, forming a new 
renus, and, more than this, he had hunted down and se- 
cured, with Jupiter's assistance, a scarabmis which he be- 
ieved to be totally new, but in respect to which he wished 
:o have my opinion on the morrow. 

" And why not to-night ? '' I asked, rubbing my hands 
over the blaze, and wishing the whole tribe of scarahcei at 
the devil. 

" Ah, if I had only known you were here ! " said Le- 
grand, " but it's so long since I saw you ; and how could I 
foresee that you would pay me a visit this very night of all 

others ? As I was coming home I met Lieutenant G , 

from the fort, and, very foolishly, I lent him the bug; so it 
will be impossible for you to see it until the morning. 
Stay here to-night, and I will send Jup down for it at sun- 
rise. It is the loveliest thing in creation ! " 

"What?— sunrise?" 

"Nonsense! no !— the bug. It is of a brilliant gold 
color— about the size of a large hickory-nut— with two jet 
black spots near one extremity of the back, and another, 
somewhat longer, at the other. The antennce are — " 

" Dey ain't no tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tellin' 
on you," here interrupted Jupiter ; " de bug is a goole-bug, 



100 THE GOLD-BUG. 

solid, ebery bit of him, inside and all, sep liim wing — neber 
feel half so hebby a bug in my life." 

^''Well, suppose it is, Jup," replied Legrand, somewhat 
more earnestly, it seemed to me, than the case demanded; 
" is that any reason for your letting the birds burn ? The 
color " — here he turned to me — " is really almost enough 
to warrant Jupiter's idea. You never saw a more brilliant 
metallic lustre than the scales emit — but of this you can- 
not judge till to-morrow. In the meantime I can give you 
some idea of the shape." Saying this, he seated himself at 
a small table, on which were a pen and ink, but no paper. 
He looked for some in a drawer, but found none. 

*' Never mind," he said at length, " this will answer ; " 
and he drew from his waistcoat pocket a scrap of what I 
took to be very dirty foolscap, and made upon it a rough 
drawing with the pen. While he did this, I retained my 
seat by the fire, for I was still chilly. When the design 
was complete, he handed it to me without rising. As I re- 
ceived it, a loud growl was heard, succeeded by a scratching 
at the door. Jupiter opened it, and a large Newfoundland, 
belonging to Legrand, rushed in, leaped upon my shoul- 
ders, and loaded me with caresses; for I had shown him 
much attention during previous visits. When his gam- 
bols were over, I looked at the paper, and, to speak the 
truth, found myself not a little puzzled at what my friend 
had depicted. 

" Well ! " I said, after contemplating it for some 
minutes, " this is a strange scarabceus, I must confess ; 
new to me; never saw anything like it before — unless it 
was a skull, or a death's-head, which it more nearly re- 
sembles than anything else that has come under mij ob- 
servation." 

"A deathVhead!" echoed Legrand. "Oh — yes — well, 
it has something of that appearance upon paper, no doubt. 
The two upper black spots look like eyes, eh? and the 



THE GOLD-BUG. 101 

longer one at the bottom like a mouth — and then the 
shape of the whole is oval." 

" Perhaps so," said I ; " but, Legrand, I fear you are no 
artist. I must wait until I see the beetle itself, if I am to 
form any idea of its personal appearance." 

" Well, I don't know," said he, a little nettled, " I draw 
tolerably — should do it at least — have had good masters, 
and flatter myself that I am not quite a blockhead." 

" But, my dear fellow, you are joking then," said I, 
" this is a very passable skull — indeed, I may say that it is 
a very excellent skull, according to the vulgar notions 
about such specimens of physiology — and your scarahcuus 
must be the queerest scarahcuus in the world if it resembles 
it. Why, we may get up a very thrilling bit of superstition 
upon this hint. I presume you will call the bug scarabcous 
caput hominis, or something of that kind — there are many 
similar titles in the Natural Histories. But where are the 
antennce you spoke of ? " 

"The antennco!" said Legrand, who seemed to be get- 
ting unaccountably warm upon the subject ; " I am sure 
you must see the antenncu. I made them as distinct as 
they are in the original insect, and I presume that is 
sufficient." 

" Well, well," I said, " perhaps you have — still I don't 
see them ; " and I handed him the paper without additional 
remark, not wishing to ruffle his temper; but I was much 
surprised at the turn affairs had taken ; his ill humor 
puzzled me — and, as for the drawing of the beetle, there 
were positively no antennce visible, and the whole did bear 
a very close resemblance to the ordinary cuts of a death's- 
head. 

He received the paper very peevishly, and was about to 
crumple it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual 
glance at the design seemed suddenly to rivet his atten- 
tion. In an instant his face grew violently red — in another 



102 THE GOLD-BUG. 

excessively pale. For some minutes he continued to scru- 
tinize the drawing minutely where he sat. At length he 
arose, took a candle from the table, and proceeded to seat 
himself upon a sea-chest in the farthest corner of the 
room. Here again he made an anxious examination of 
the paper, turning it in all directions. He said nothing, 
however, and his conduct greatly astonished me; yet I 
thought it prudent not to exacerbate the growing moodi- 
ness of his temper by any comment. Presently he took 
from his coat-pocket a wallet, placed the paper carefully 
in it, and deposited both in a writing-desk, which he 
locked. He now grew more composed in his demeanor; 
but his original air of enthusiasm had quite disappeared. 
Yet he seemed not so much sulky as abstracted. As the 
evening wore away he became more and more absorbed in 
revery, from which no sallies of mine could arouse him. 
It had been my intention to pass the night at the hut, as I 
had frequently done before, but seeing my host in this 
mood, I deemed it proper to take leave. He did not press 
me to remain, but as I departed, he shook my hand with 
even more than his usual cordiality. 

It was about a month after this (and during the inter- 
val I had seen nothing of Legrand) when I received a 
visit, at Charleston, from his man, Jupiter. I had never 
seen the good old negro look so dispirited, and I feared 
that some serious disaster had befallen my friend. 

*^ Well, Jup," said I, " what is the matter now ? — how 
is your master ? " 

" Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well 
as mought be." 

" Not well ! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he 
complain of ? " 

^' Dar ! dat's it ! — him neber 'plain of notin' — but him 
berry sick for all dat." 



THE GOLD-BUG. 103 

" Very sick, Jupiter ! — why didn't you say so at once ? 
Is he confined to bed ? " 

*' No, dat he aint ! — he aint 'fin'd nowhar — dat's just 
whar de shoe pinch — my mind is got to be berry hebby 
'bout poor Massa Will." 

" Jupiter, I should like to understand what it is you are 
talking about. You say your master is sick. Hasn't he 
told you what ails him ? " 

" Why, massa, 'taint worf while for to git mad about de 
matter — Massa Will say noffin at all aint de matter wid 
him — but den what make him go about looking dis here 
way, wid he head down and he soldiers up, and as white as 
a goose ? And den he keep a syphon all de time " 

" Keeps a what, Jupiter ? " 

'^ Keeps a syphon wid de figgurs on de slate — de queerest 
figgurs I ebber did see. Ise gittin' to be skeered, I tell 
you. Hab for to keep mighty tight eye 'pon him 'noovers. 
Todder day he gib me slip 'fore de sun up and was gone 
de whole ob de blessed day. I had a big stick ready cut 
for to gib him deuced good beating when he did come — 
but Ise sich a fool dat I hadn't de heart arter all — he 
looked so berry poorly." 

^^ Eh ? — what' ? — ah yes ! — upon the whole I think you 
had better not be too severe with the poor fellow — don't 
flog him, Jupiter — he can't very well stand it — but can you 
form no idea of what has occasioned this illness, or rather 
this change of conduct? Has anything unpleasant hap- 
pened since I saw you ? " 

" No, massa, dey aint bin noffin onpleasant since den — 
'twas 'fore den I'm feared — 'twas de berry day you was 
dare." 

" How ? what do you mean ? " 

" Why, massa, I mean de bug — dare now." 

''The what?" 



IQ^ THE GOLD-BUG. 

^' De bug — I'm berry sartin dat Massa Will bin bit 
somewhere 'bout de head by dat goole-bug." 

" And what cause have you, Jupiter, for such a sup- 
position ? " 

" Claws enuff, massa, and mouff, too. I nebber did see 
sich a deuced bug — he kick and he bite ebery ting what 
cum near him. Massa Will cotch him fuss, but had for 
to let him go 'gin mighty quick, I tell you — den was de 
time he must ha' got de bite. I didn't like de look ob de 
bug mouff, myself, nohow, so I wouldn't take hold ob him 
wid my finger, but I cotch him wid a piece ob paper dat I 
found. I rap him up in de paper and stuff a piece of it 
in he mouff — dat was de way." 

'^And you think, then, that your master was really 
bitten by the beetle, and that the bite made him sick ? " 

" I don't think noffin about it — I nose it. What make 
him dream 'bout de goole so much, if 'taint cause he bit 
by the goole-bug? Ise heered 'bout dem goole-bugs 'fore 
dis." 

" But how do you know he dreams about gold ? " 

" How I know ? why, 'cause he talk about it in his sleep 
— dat's how I nose." 

"Well, Jup, perhaps you are right; but to what fortu- 
nate circumstance am I to attribute the honor of a visit 
from you to-day ? " 

" What de matter, massa ? " 

" Did you bring any message from Mr. Legrand ? " 

" No, massa, I bring dis here pissel ; " and here Jupiter 
handed me a note which ran thus : 

" My Dear 



" Why have I not seen you for so long a time ? I hope 
you have not been so foolish as to take offence at any little 
hrusquerie of mine ; but no, that is improbable. 

" Since I saw you I have had great cause for anxiety. I 



THE GOLD-BUG. 105 

have something to tell you, yet scarcely know how to tell 
it, or whether I should tell it at all. 

" I have not been quite well for some days past, and 
poor old Jup annoys me, almost beyond endurance, by his 
well-meant attentions. Would you believe it? — he had 
prepared a huge stick, the other day, with which to chastise 
me for giving him the slip, and spending the day, solus, 
among the hills on the main land. I verily believe that 
my ill looks alone saved me a flogging. 

" I have made no addition to my cabinet since we met. 

^' If you can, in any way, make it convenient, come over 
with Jupiter. Do come. I wish to see you to-night, upon 
business of importance. I assure you that it is of the 
highest importance. 

" Ever yours, 

^^ William Legrand." 

There was something in the tone of this note which 
gave me great uneasiness. Its whole style differed 
materially from that of Legrand. What could he be 
dreaming of? What new crotchet possessed his excitable 
brain ? What " business of the highest importance " 
could he possibly have to transact? Jupiter's account 
of him boded no good. I dreaded lest the continued 
pressure of misfortune had, at length, fairly unsettled the 
reason of my friend. Without a moment's hesitation, 
therefore, I prepared to accompany the negro. 

Upon reaching the wharf, I noticed a scythe and three 
spades, all apparently new, lying in the bottom of the 
boat in which we were to embark. 

" What is the meaning of all this, Jup ? '' I in- 
quired. 

" Him syfe, massa, and spade." 

" Very true ; but what are they doing here ? '' 

"Him de syfe and de spade what Massa Will sis 'pon 



IQQ THE GOLD-BUG. 

my buying for him in de town, and de debbil's own lot of 
money I had to gib for 'em.'' 

'' But what, in the name of all that is mysterious, is 
your ^ Massa Will ' going to do with scythes and spades ? " 

" Dat's more dan / know, and debbil take me if I don't 
b'lieve 'tis more dan he know too. But it's all cum ob de 
bug." 

Finding that no satisfaction was to be obtained of 
Jupiter, whose whole intellect seemed to be absorbed by 
" de bug," I now stepped into the boat, and made sail. 
With a fair and strong breeze we soon ran into the little 
cove to the northward of Fort Moultrie, and a walk of 
some two miles brought us to the hut. It was about three 
in the afternoon when we arrived. Legrand had been 
awaiting us in eager expectation. He grasped my hand 
with a nervous empressement which alarmed me and 
strengthened the suspicions already entertained. His 
countenance was pale even to ghastliness, and his deep-set 
eyes glared with unnatural lustre. After some inquiries 
respecting his health, I asked him, not knowing what 
better to say, if he had yet obtained the scarabceus from 
Lieutenant G 

" Oh, yes," he replied, coloring violently, " I got it from 
him the next morning. Nothing should tempt me to 
part with that scardbcous. Do you know that Jupiter is 
quite right about it ? " 

" In what way ? " I asked, with a sad foreboding at 
heart. 

" In supposing it to be a bug of real gold.'' He said 
this with an air of profound seriousness, and I felt in- 
expressibly shocked. 

" This bug is to make my fortune," he continued, with 
a triumphant smile ; " to reinstate me in my family pos- 
sessions. Is it any wonder, then, that I prize it? Since 
Fortune has thought fit to bestow it, upon me, I have only 



THE GOLD-BUG. 107 

to use it properly, and I shall arrive at the gold of which 
it is the index. Jupiter, bring me that scarab ceus I '' 

" What ! de bug, massa ? I'd rudder not go fer trubble 
dat bug; you mus' git him for your own self." Here- 
upon Legrand arose, with a grave and stately air, and 
brought me the beetle from a glass case in which it was 
enclosed. It was a beautiful scarahceus and, at that time, 
unknown to naturalists — of course a great prize in a 
scientific point of view. There were two round black 
spots near one extremity of the back, and a long one near 
the other. The scales were exceedingly hard and glossy, 
with all the appearance of burnished gold. The weight of 
the insect was very remarkable, and, taking all things into 
consideration, I could hardly blame Jupiter for his opinion 
respecting it ; but what to make of Legrand's concordance 
with that opinion, I could not, for the life of me, tell. 

" I sent for you," said he, in a grandiloquent tone, 
when I had completed my examination of the beetle, " I 
sent for you that I might have your counsel and assistance 
in furthering the views of Fate and of the bug — " 

" My dear Legrand," I cried, interrupting him, " you 
are certainly unwell, and had better use some little pre- 
cautions. You shall go to bed, and I will remain with 
you a few days, until you get over this. You are feverish 
and—" 

" Feel my pulse," said he. 

I felt it, and, to say the truth, found not the slightest 
indication of fever. 

" But you may be ill and yet have no fever. Allow 
me this once to prescribe for you. In the first place go to 
bed. In the next — " 

" You are mistaken," he interposed, " I am as well as I 
can expect to be under the excitement which I suffer. If 
you really wish me well, you will relieve this excitement." 

" And how is this to be done ? " 



IQQ THE GOLD-BUG. 

" Very easily. ■ Jupiter and myself are going upon an 
expedition into the hills, upon the main land, and in this 
expedition, we shall need the aid of some person in whom 
we can confide. You are the only one we can trust. 
Whether we succeed or fail, the excitement which you now 
perceive in me will be equally allayed." 

^^ I am anxious to oblige you in any way/' I replied; 
" but do you mean to say that this infernal beetle has any 
connected with your expedition into the hills ? " 

" It has." 

*' Then, Legrand, I can become a party to no such absurd 
proceeding." 

" I am sorry — very sorry — for we shall have to try it by 
ourselves." 

" Try it by yourselves ! The man is surely mad ! — but 
stay ! — how long do you propose to be absent ? " 

" Probably all night. We shall start immediately, and 
be back, at all events, by sunrise." 

" And will you promise me, upon your honor, that when 
this freak of yours is over, and the bug business (good 
God!) settled to your satisfaction, you will then return 
home and follow my advice implicitly, as that of your 
physician." 

^^ Yes ; I promise ; and now let us be off, for we have no 
time to lose." 

With a heavy heart I accompanied my friend. We 
started about four o'clock — Legrand, Jupiter, the dog, and 
myself. Jupiter had with him the scythe and spades — the 
whole of which he insisted upon carrying — more through 
fear, it seemed to me, of trusting either of the imple- 
ments within reach of his master, than from any excess of 
industry or complaisance. His demeanor was dogged in 
the extreme, and " dat deuced bug " were the sole words 
which escaped his lips during the journey. For my own 
part, I had charge of a couple of dark lanterns^ while 



THE GOLD-BUG. 109 

?grand contented himself with the scarabccus, which he 
rried attached to the end of a bit of whip-cord ; twirling 
to and fro, with the air of a conjuror, as he went, 
hen I observed this last, plain evidence of my friend's 
erration of mind, I could scarcely refrain from tears, 
thought it best, however, to humor his fancy, at least for 
e present, or until I could adopt some more energetic 
easures with a chance of success. In the meantime I 
ideavored, but all in vain, to sound him in regard to the 
iject of the expedition. Having succeeded in inducing 
e to accompany him, he seemed unwilling to hold con- 
srsation upon any topic of minor importance, and to all 
y questions vouchsafed no other reply than "we shall 

We crossed the creek at the head of the island by means 
: a skiff, and, ascending the high grounds on the shore of 
le main land, proceeded in a northwesterly direction, 

rough a tract of country excessively wild and desolate, 
here no trace of a human footstep was to be seen. Le- 
•and led the way with descision; pausing only for an 

stant, here and there, to consult what appeared to be 
rtain landmarks of his own contrivance upon a former 
icasion. 

In this manner we journeyed for about two hours, and 
ie sun was just setting when we entered a region in- 
nitely more dreary than any yet seen. It was a species 
I tableland, near the summit of an almost inaccessible 
ill, densely wooded from base to pinnacle, and inter- 
Dersed with huge crags that appeared to lie loosely upon 
le soil, and in many cases were prevented from precipitat- 
ig themselves into the valleys below, merely by the sup- 
ort of the trees against which they reclined. Deep 
ivines, in various directions, gave an air of still sterner 
)lemnity to the scene. 

The natural platform to which we had clambered was 



no THE GOLD-BUG. 

thickly overgrown with brambles, through which we sooi 
discovered that it would have been impossible to force ou 
way but for the scythe; and Jupiter, by direction of hi 
master, proceeded to clear for us a path to the foot of a: 
enormously tall tulip-tree, which stood, with some eigb 
or ten oaks, upon the level, and far surpassed them al 
and all other trees which I had then ever seen, in th 
beauty of its foliage and form, in the wide spread of it 
branches, and in the general majesty of its appearance 
When we reached this tree, Legrand turned to Jupitei 
and asked him if he thought he could climb it. The ol 
man seemed a little staggered by the question, and fo 
some moments made no reply. At length he approache 
the huge trunk, walked slowly around it, and examined i 
with minute attention. When, he had completed hi 
scrutiny, he merely said: 

" Yes, massa, Jup climb any tree he ebber see in h 
life.^^ 

" Then up with you as soon as possible, for it will soo: 
be too dark to see what we are about." 

" How far mus' go up, massa ? " inquired Jupiter. 

" Get up the main trunk first, and then I will tell yo 
which way to go — and here — stop ! take this beetle wit 
you." 

" De bug, Massa Will ! — de goole-bug ! " cried the negr( 
drawing back in dismay — " what for mus tote de bug wa 
up de tree ? — d — n if I do ! " 

" If you are afraid, Jup, a great big negro like you, t 
take hold of a harmless little dead beetle, why you ca 
carry it up by this string — but, if you do not take it u 
with you in some way, I shall be under the necessity ci 
breaking your head with this shovel." 

"What de matter now, massa?" said Jup, evidentli 
shamed into compliance ; " always want for to raise fuil 
wid old nigger. Was only funnin anyhow. Me feered c. 



THE GOLD-BUG. HI 

! what I keer for de bug?" Here he took cautiously 
Ld of the extreme end of the string, and, maintaining 
i insect as far from his person as circumstances would 
rmit, prepared to ascend the tree. 
In youth, the tulip-tree, or Liriodendron Tulipiferum, 

most magnificent of American foresters, has a trunk 
^uliarly smooth, and often rises to a great height with- 
t lateral branches; but, in its riper age, the bark be- 
mes gnarled and uneven, while many short limbs make 
3ir appearance on the stem. Thus the difficulty of 
tension, in the present case, lay more in semblance than 

reality. Embracing the huge cylinder, as closely ah 
ssible, with his arms and knees, seizing with his hands 
me projections, and resting his naked toes upon others, 
ipiter, after one or two narrow escapes from falling, at 
gth wriggled himself into the first great fork, and 
amed to consider the whole business as virtually accom- 
ished. The risk of the achievement was, in fact, now 
er, although the climber was some sixty or seventy feet 
om the ground. 

^^ Which way mus' go now, Massa Will ? " he asked. 
"Keep up the largest branches — the one on this side," 
lid Legrand. The negro obeyed him promptly, and 
parently with but little trouble; ascending higher and 
gher, until no glimpse of his squat figure could be ob- 
ined through the dense foliage which enveloped it. 
resently his voice was heard in a sort of halloo. 
" How much f udder is got for go ? " 
" How high up are you ? " asked Legrand. 
" Eber so fur," replied the negro ; " can see de sky f ru 
3 top ob de tree." 

" Never mind the sky, but attend to what I say. Look 
own the trunk and count the limbs below you on this 
de. How many limbs have you passed ? " 



212 THE GOLD-BUG. 

" One, two, tree, four, fibe— I done pass fibe big limb 
naassa, 'pon dis side." - 

" Then go one limb higher." 

In a few minutes the voice was heard again, announcing 

that the seventh limb was attained. ' 

" Now, Jup," cried Legrand, evidently much excited 

" I want you to work your way out upon that limb as fa 

as you can. If you see anything strange let me know." 

By this time what little doubt I might have entertainec 
of my poor friend's insanity was put finally at rest. I ha( 
no alternative but to conclude him stricken with lunacy 
and I became seriously anxious about getting him home 
While I was pondering upon what was best to be done 
Jupiter's voice was again heard. 

" Mos feered for to ventur pon dis limb berry far — 'ti 
dead limb putty much all de way." 

"Did you say it was a dead limb, Jupiter?" crie^j 
Legrand in a quavering voice. i 

'^Yes, massa, him dead as de door-nail — done up fo 
sartin — done departed dis here life." 

"What in the name of heaven shall I do?" askes 
Legrand, seemingly in the greatest distress. 

" Do ! " said I, glad of an opportunity to interpose 
word, " why come home and go to bed. Come now !• 
that's a fine fellow. It's getting late and, besides, yo 
remember your promise." 

"Jupiter," cried he, without heeding me in the leas 
" do you hear me ? " 

" Yes, Massa Will, hear you ebber so plain.'^ 
" Try the wood well, then, with your knife, and see 
you think it very rotten." 

"Him rotten, massa, sure nuff," replied the negro in| 
few moments, "but not so berry rotten as mought bj 
Mought venture out leetle way pon de limb by myself, dat 
true." 



THE GOLD-BUa. 113 

'^ By yourself ! — what do you mean ? " 

"Why, I mean de bug. 'Tis berry hebby bug. Spose 

drop him down fuss, and den de limb won't break wid 
just de weight of one nigger." 

" You infernal scoundrel ! " cried Legrand, apparently 
much relieved, "what do you mean by telling me such 
aonsense as that? As sure as you drop that beetle I'll 
jreak your neck. Look here, Jupiter, do you hear me ? " 

" Yes, massa, needn't hollo at poor nigger dat style." 

" Well ! now listen ! — if you will venture out on the 
imb as far as you think safe, and not let go the beetle, 
['11 make you a present of a silver dollar as soon as you 
yet down." 

" I'm gwine, Massa Will — deed I is," replied the negro 
fery promptly — " mos out to the eend now." 

^^ Out to the end!" here fairly screamed Legrand; "do 
70U say you are out to the end of that limb ? " 

" Soon be to de eeend, massa — 0-0-0-0-oh ! Lor-gol-a 
marcy ! what is dis here pon de tree ? " 

" Well ! " cried Legrand, highly delighted, " what 
(is it?" 

" Why 'taint noffin but a skull — somebody bin lef him 
head up de tree, and de crows done gobble ebery bit ob de 
meat off.'^ 

" A skull, you say ! — very well, — how is it fastened to 
he limb ? — what holds it on ? " 

" Sure nui?, massa ; mus look. Why dis berry curious 
sarcumstance, pon my word — dare's a great big nail in de 
kull, what fastens ob it on to de tree." 

"Well now, Jupiter, do exactly as I tell you — do you 
hear?" 

" Yes, massa." 

" Pay attention, then — find the left eye of the skull." 

" Hum ! hoo ! dat's good ! why dey ain't no eye left at 
ill." 



114 



THE GOLD-BUa. 



" Curse your stupidity I do you know your right hand 
from your left ? '' 

" Yes, I knows dat — knows all about dat — 'tis my lef 
hand what I chops de wood wid." 

" To be sure ! you are left-handed ; and your left eye is 
on the same side as your left hand. Now, I suppose, you 
can find the left eye of the skull, or the place where the: 
left eye has been. Have you found it ? " 

Here was a long pause. At length the negro asked. 

" Is de lef eye of de skull pon de same side as de lef t 
hand of de skull too ? — cause de skull aint got not a bit ob 
a hand at all — nebber mind ! I got de lef eye now — here 
de lef eye ! what mus do wid it ? " 

" Let the beetle drop through it, as far as the string 
will reach — but be careful and not let go your hold of thei 
string.^' 

" All dat done, Massa Will ; mighty easy ting for to put 
de bug f ru de hole — look out for him dare belovr ! ^' 

During this colloquy no portion of Jupiter's person 
could be seen; but the beetle, which he had suffered to' 
descend, was now visible at the end of the string, and' 
glistened, like a globe of burnished gold, in the last rays 
of the setting sun, some of which still faintly illumined 
the eminence upon which we stood. The scarahceus huno 
quite clear of any branches, and, if allowed to fall, would 
have fallen at our feet. Legrand immediately took the 
scythe, and cleared with it a circular space, three or foui 
yards in diameter, just beneath the insect, and, having ac- 
complished this, ordered Jupiter to let go the string anc 
come down from the tree. 

Driving a peg, with great nicety, into the ground, at th( 
precise spot where the beetle fell, my friend now produce( 
from his pocket a tape-measure. Fastening one end o: 
this at that point of the trunk of the tree which was neares 
the peg, he unrolled it till it reached the peg and thenc 



THE GOLD-BUG. 115 

urther unrolled it, in the direction already established by 
;he two points of the tree and the peg, for the distance 
)f fifty feet — Jupiter clearing away the brambles with the 
;cythe. At the spot thus attained a second peg was driven, 
md about this, as a centre, a rude circle, about four feet 
n diameter, described. Taking now a spade himself, and 
giving one to Jupiter and one to me, Legrand begged us 
:o set about digging as quickly as possible. 

To speak the truth, I had no especial relish for such 
imusement at any time and, at that particular moment, 
vvould willingly have declined it ; for the night was coming 
on, and I felt much fatigued with the exercise already 
l;aken; but I saw no mode of escape, and was fearful of 
disturbing my poor friend's equanimity by a refusal. 
Could I have depended, indeed, upon Jupiter's aid, I 
would have had no hesitation in attempting to get the 
lunatic home by force; but I was too well assured of the 
old negro's disposition, to hope that he would assist 
me, under any circumstances, in a personal contest with 
his master. I made no doubt that the latter had been 
infected with some of the innumerable Southern super- 
stitions about money buried, and that his phantasy had 
received confirmation by the finding of the scarabceus, or 
perhaps, by Jupiter's obstinacy in maintaining it to be ^' a 
bug of real gold." A mind disposed to lunacy would 
readily be led away by such suggestions' — especially if 
chiming in with favorite preconceived ideas — and then I 
called to mind the poor fellow's speech about the beetle's 
being " the index of his fortune." Upon the whole, I was 
sadly vexed and puzzled but, at length, I concluded to 
make a virtue of necessity — to dig with a good will, and 
thus the sooner to convince the visionary, by ocular dem- 
onstration, of the fallacy of the opinion he entertained. 

The lanterns having been lit, we all fell to work with a 
zeal worthy a more rational cause; and, as the glare fell 



115 THE GOLD-BUG. 

upon our persons and implements, I could not help think- 
ing how picturesque a group we composed, and how 
strange and suspicious our labors must have appeared to 
any interloper who, by chance, might have stumbled upon 
our whereabouts. 

We dug very steadily for two hours. Little was said; 
and our chief embarrassment lay in the yelpings of the 
dog, who took exceeding interest in our proceedings. He, , 
at length, became so obstreperous that we grew fearful of! 
his giving the alarm to some stragglers in the vicinity, — 
or, rather, this was the apprehension of Legrand; — for 
myself, I should have rejoiced at any interruption which 
might have enabled me to get the wanderer home. The 
noise was, at length, very effectually silenced by Jupiter 
who, getting out of the hole with a dogged air of delibera-- 
tion, tied the brute's mouth up with one of his suspenders, . 
and then returned, with a grave chuckle, to his task. | 

When the time mentioned had expired, we had reached} 
a depth of five feet, and yet no signs of any treasure be-- 
came manifest. A general pause ensued, and I began to 
hope that the farce was at an end. Legrand, however,, 
although evidently much disconcerted, wiped his browj 
thoughtfully and recommenced. We had excavated the 
entire circle of four feet diameter, and now we slightly en- 
larged the limit, and went to the farther depth of two 
feet. Still nothing appeared. The gold-seeker, whom I 
sincerely pitied, at length clambered from the pit, with the 
bitterest disappointment imprinted upon every feature, 
and proceeded, slowly and reluctantly, to put on his coat, 
which he had thrown off at the beginning of his labor. 
In the meantime I made no remark. Jupiter, at a signal 
from his master, began to gather up his tools. This 
done, and the dog having been unmuzzled, we turned in 
profound silence toward home. 

We had taken, perhaps, a dozen steps in this direction, 



THE GOLD-BUG. 117 

when, with a loud oath, Legrand strode up to Jupiter, 
and seized him by the collar. The astonished negro 
opened his eyes and mouth to the fullest extent, let fall 
the spades, and fell upon his knees. 

^' You scoundrel ! " said Legrand, hissing out the 
syllables from between his clenched teeth — "you infernal 
black villain! — speak, I tell you! — answer me this in- 
stant, without prevarication ! — which — which is your left 
eye?- 

" Oh, my golly, Massa Will ! aint dis here my lef eye 
for sartin ? " roared the terrified Jupiter, placing his hand 
upon his right organ of vision, and holding it there with 
a desperate pertinacity, as if in immediate dread of his 
master's attempt at a gouge. 

" I thought so ! — I knew it ! hurrah ! " vociferated Le- 
grand, letting the negro go and executing a series of 
curvets and caracols, much to the astonishment of his 
valet, who, arising from his knees, looked, mutely, from 
his master to myself, and then from myself to his master. 

" Come ! we must go back," said the latter, " the game's 
not up yet ; " and he again led the way to the tulip-tree. 

" Jupiter," said he, when we reached its foot, " come 
here! was the skull nailed to the limb with the face out- 
ward, or with the face to the limb ? " 

" De face was out, massa, so dat de crows could get at 
de eyes good, without any trouble." 

" Well, then, was it this eye or that through which you 
dropped the beetle ? " here Legrand touched each of 
Jupiter's eyes. 

" 'Twas dis eye, massa — de lef eye — jis as you tell me," 
and here it was his right eye that the negro indicated. 

" That will do — we must try it again." 

Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or 
fancied that I saw, certain indications of method, removed 
the peg which marked the spot where the beetle fellj to 



lis THE GOLD-BUG. 

a spot about three inches to the westward of its former 
position. Taking, now, the tape measure from the nearest 
point of the trunk to the peg, as before, and continuing the 
extension in a straight line to the distance of fifty feet, a 
spot was indicated, removed by several yards from the 
point at which we had been digging. 

Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than 
in the former instance, was now described, and we again 
set to work with the spade. I was dreadfully weary but, 
scarcely understanding what had occasioned the change in 
my thoughts, I felt no longer any great aversion from the 
labor imposed. I had become most unaccountably inter- 
ested — nay, even excited. Perhaps there was something, 
amid all the extravagant demeanor of Legrand — some air 
of forethought, or of deliberation, which impressed me. I 
dug eagerly, and now and then caught myself actually 
looking, with something that very much resembled ex- 
pectation, for the fancied treasure, the vision of which had 
demented my unfortunate companion. At a period when 
such vagaries of thought most fully possessed me, and 
when we had been at work perhaps an hour and a half, we 
were again interrupted by the violent bowlings of the dog. 
His uneasiness, in the first instance, had been, evidently, 
but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now as- 
sumed a bitter and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's again 
attempting to muzzle him, he made furious resistance, 
and, leaping into the hole, tore up the mould frantically 
with his claws. In a few seconds he had uncovered a mass 
of human bones, forming two complete skeletons, inter- 
mingled with several buttons of metal, and what appeared 
to be the dust of decayed woollen. One or two strokes of a 
spade upturned the blade of a large Spanish knife, and, 
as we dug farther, three or four loose pieces of gold and 
silver coin came to light. 

At sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be 



THE GOLD-BUG. 119 

restrained, but the countenance of his master wore an air 
of extreme disappointment. He urged us, however, to 
continue our exertions, and the words were hardly uttered 
when I stumbled and fell forward, having caught the toe 
of my boot in a large ring of iron that lay half buried in 
the loose earth. 

We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass ten 
minutes of more intense excitement. During this in- 
terval we had fairly unearthed an oblong chest of wood 
which, from its perfect preservation and wonderful hard- 
ness, had plainly been subjected to some mineralizing pro- 
cess — perhaps that of the bi-chloride of mercury. This 
box was three feet and a half long, three feet broad, and 
two and a half feet deep. It was firmly secured by bands 
of wrought iron, riveted, and forming a kind of open 
trellis-work over the whole. On each side of the chest, near 
the top, were three rings of iron — six in all — by means of 
which a firm hold could be obtained by six persons. Our 
utmost united endeavors served only to disturb the coffer 
very slightly in its bed. We at once saw the impossibility 
of removing so great a weight. Luckily, the sole fasten- 
ings of the lid consisted of two sliding bolts. These we 
drew back — trembling and panting with anxiety. In an 
instant, a treasure of incalculable value lay gleaming be- 
fore us. As the rays of the lanterns fell within the pit, 
there flashed upward a glow and a glare, from a confused 
heap of gold and of jewels, that absolutely dazzled our 
eyes. 

I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I 
gazed. Amazement was, of course, predominant. Le- 
grand appeared exhausted with excitement, and spoke very 
few words. Jupiter's countenance wore, for some minutes, 
as deadly a pallor as it is possible, in the nature of things, 
for any negro's visage to assume. He seemed stupefied — 
thunderstricken. Presently he fell upon his knees in the 



120 THE GOLD-BUG. 

pit, and burying his naked arms up to the elbows in gold, 
let them there remain, as if enjoying the luxury of a bath. 
At length, with a deep sigh, he exclaimed, as if in a 
soliloquy : 

" And dis all cum ob de goole-bug ! de putty goole-bug ! 
de poor little goole-bug, what I boosed in that sabage kind 
ob style ! Aint you shamed ob yourself, nigger ? — answer 
me dat ! " 

It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both 
master and valet to the expediency of removing the treas- 
ure. It was growing late, and it behooved us to make 
exertion, that we might get every thing housed before 
daylight. It was difficult to say what should be done, and 
much time was spent in deliberation — so confused were the 
ideas of all. We, finally, lightened the box by removing 
two thirds of its contents, when we were enabled, with 
some trouble, to raise it from the hole. The articles taken 
out were desposited among the brambles, and the dog left 
to guard them, with strict orders from Jupiter, neither 
upon any pretence to stir from the spot, nor to open his 
mouth until our return. We then hurriedly made for 
home with the chest; reaching the hut in safety, but after 
excessive toil, at one o'clock in the morning. Worn out as 
we were, it was not in human nature to do more im- 
mediately. We rested until two, and had supper; starting 
for the hills immediately afterward, armed with three 
stout sacks which, by good luck, were upon the premises. 
A little before four we arrived at the pit, divided the 
remainder of the booty; as equally as might be, among us, 
and leaving the holes unfilled, again set out for the hut, 
at which, for the second time, we deposited our golden 
burthens, just as the first faint streaks of the dawn 
gleamed from over the tree-tops in the East. 

We were now thoroughly broken down; but the intense 
excitement of the time denied us repose. After an un- 



THE GOLD-BUG. 



121 



quiet slumber of some three or four hours' duration, we 
arose, as if by preconcert, to make examination of our 
treasure. 

The chest had been full to the brim, and we spent the 
whole day, and the greater part of the next night, in a 
scrutiny of its contents. There had been nothing like 
order or arrangement. Everything had been heaped in 
promiscuously. Having assorted all with care, we found 
ourselves possessed of even vaster wealth than we had at 
first supposed. In coin there was rather more than four 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars — estimating the value 
of the pieces, as accurately as we could, by the tables of 
the period. There was not a particle of silver. All was 
gold of antique date and of great variety — French, 
Spanish, and German money, with a few English guineas, 
and some counters, of which we had never seen specimens 
before. There were several very large and heavy coins, 
so worn that we could make nothing of their inscriptions. 
There was no American money. The value of the jewels 
we found more difficulty in estimating. There were 
diamonds — some of them exceedingly large and fine — a 
hundred and ten in all, and not one of them small; 
eighteen rubies of remarkable brilliancy; — three hundred 
and ten emeralds, all very beautiful; and twenty-one 
sapphires, with an opal. These stones had all been broken 
from their settings and thrown loose in the chest. The 
settings themselves, which we picked out from among the 
other gold, appeared to have been beaten up with ham- 
mers, as if to prevent identification. Besides all this, 
there was a vast quantity of solid gold ornaments; nearly 
two hundred massive finger and ear-rings; rich chains — 
thirty of these, if I remember; eighty-three very large and 
heavy crucifixes; five gold censers of great value; a 
prodigious golden punch-bowl, ornamented with richly 
chased vine-leaves and Bacchanalian figures; with two 



122 THE GOLD-BUG. 

sword-liandles exquisitely embossed, and many other 
smaller articles which I cannot recollect. The weight of 
these valuables exceeded three hundred and fifty pounds 
avoirdupois; and in this estimate I have not included one 
hundred and ninety-seven superb gold watches; three of 
the number being worth each five hundred dollars, if one. 
Many of them were very old, and as timekeepers valueless ; 
the works having suffered, more or less, from corrosion — 
but all were richly jewelled and in cases of great worth. 
We estimated the entire contents of the chest, that night, 
at a million and a half of dollars ; and upon the subsequent 
disposal of the trinkets and jewels (a few being retained 
for our own use), it was found that we had greatly under- 
valued the treasure. 

When, at length, we had concluded our examination, and 
the intense excitement of the time had, in some measure, 
subsided, Legrand, who saw that I was dying with im- 
patience for a solution of this most extraordinary riddle, 
entered into a full detail of all the circumstances con- 
nected with it. 

" You remember," said he, " the night when I handed 
you the rough sketch I had made of the scarabceus. You 
recollect also, that I became quite vexed at you for 
insisting that my drawing resembled a death's-head. 
When you first made this assertion I thought you were 
jesting; but afterward I called to mind the peculiar spots 
on the back of the insect, and admitted to myself that your 
remark had some little foundation in fact. Still, the 
sneer at my graphic powers irritated me — for I am con- 
sidered a good artist — and, therefore, when you handed me 
the scrap of parchment, I was about to crumple it up and 
throw it angrily into the fire." 

" The scrap of paper, you mean," said I. 

" No ; it had much of the appearance of paper, and at 
first I supposed it to be such, but when I came to draw 



THE GOLD-BUG. 123 

upon it, I discovered it at once to be a piece of very thin 
parchment. It was quite dirty, you remember. Well, as 
I was in the very act of crumpling it up, my glance fell 
upon the sketch at which you had been looking, and you 
may imagine my astonishment when I perceived, in fact, 
the figure of a death's-head just where, it seemed to me, I 
had made the drawing of the beetle. For a moment I 
was too much amazed to think with accuracy. I knew 
that my design was very different in detail from this — al- 
though there was a certain similarity in general outline. 
Presently I took a candle, and seating myself at the other 
end of the room, proceeded to scrutinize the parchment 
more closely. Upon turning it over, I saw my own sketch 
upon the reverse, just as I had made it. My first idea, 
now, was mere surprise at the really remarkable similarity 
of outline — at the singular coincidence involved in the fact 
that, unknown to me, there should have been a skull upon 
the other side of the parchment, immediately beneath my 
figure of the scarabccus, and that this skull, not only in 
outline, but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing. 
I say the singularity of this coincidence absolutely stupe- 
fied me for a time. This is the usual effect of such coinci- 
dences. The mind struggles to establish a connection — a 
sequence of cause and effect — and, being unable to io so, 
suffers a species of temporary paralysis. But, when I re- 
covered from this stupor, there dawned upon me gradually 
a conviction which startled me even far more than the 
coincidence. I began distinctly, positively, to remember 
that there had been no drawing upon the parchment, when 
I made my sketch of the scarabceus. I became perfectly 
certain of this; for I recollected turning up first one side 
and then the other, in search of the cleanest spot. Had 
the skull been then there, of course I could not have 
failed to notice it. Here was indeed a mystery which I 
felt it impossible to explain; but, even at that early mo- 



124 THE GOLD-BUG. 

ment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the most 
remote and secret chambers of my intellect, a glow-worm- 
like conception of that truth which last night's adventure 
brought to so magnificent a demonstration. I arose at 
once, and putting the parchment securely away, dismissed 
all further reflection until I should be alone. 

*^ When you had gone, and when Jupiter was fast asleep, 
I betook myself to a more methodical investigation of the 
affair. In the first place I considered the manner in 
which the parchment had come into my possession. The 
spot where we discovered the scarahceus was on the coast of 
the main-land, about a mile eastward of the island, and 
but a short distance above high-water mark. Upon my 
taking hold of it, it gave me a sharp bite, which caused me 
to let it drop. Jupiter, with his accustomed caution, be- 
fore seizing the insect, which had flown toward him, looked 
about him for a leaf, or something of that nature, by which 
to take hold of it. It was at this moment that his eyes, 
and mine also, fell upon the scrap of parchment, which I 
then supposed to be paper. It was lying half buuried in the 
sand, a corner sticking up. Near the spot where we found 
it, I observed the remnants of the hull of what appeared 
to have been a ship's long-boat. The wreck seemed to 
have been there for a very great while ; for the resemblance 
to boat timbers could scarcely be traced. 

" Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the 
beetle in it, and gave it to me. Soon afterward we turned 

to go home, and on the way met Lieutenant G . I 

showed him the insect, and he begged me to let him take 
it to the fort. Upon my consenting, he thrust it forth- 
with into his waistcoat pocket, without the parchment in 
which it had been wrapped, and which I had continued to 
hold in my hand during his inspection. Perhaps he 
dreaded my changing my mind, and thought it best to 
make sure of the prize at once — you know how enthusiastic 



THE GOLD-BUG. 125 

e is on all subjects connected with Natural History. At 
tie same time, without being conscious of it, I must have 
eposited the parchment in my own pocket. 

" You remember that when I went to the table, for the 
urpose of making a sketch of the beetle, I found no 
aper where it was usually kept. I looked in the drawer, 
nd found none there. I searched my pockets, hoping 
3 find an old letter, when my hand fell upon the parch- 
lent. I thus detail the precise mode in which it came 
ato my possession; for the circumstances impressed me 
nth peculiar force. 

' No doubt you will think me fanciful — but I had 
Iready established a kind of connection. I had put to- 
ether two links of a great chain. There was a boat lying 
pon a sea-coast, and not far from the boat was a parch- 
Qcnt — not a paper — with a skull depicted upon it. You 
t^ill, of course, ask Svhere is the connection?' I reply 
hat the skull, or death's-head, is the well-known emblem 
f the pirate. The flag of the death's-head is hoisted in all 
ngagements. 

" I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not 
>aper. Parchment is durable — almost imperishable, 
klatters of little moment are rarely consigned to parch- 
Qcnt ; since, for the mere ordinary purposes of drawing or 
^rriting, it is not nearly so well adapted as paper. This 
eflection suggested some meaning — some relevancy — in 
he death's-head. I did not fail to observe, also, the forrn 
if the parchment. Although one of its corners had been, 
)y some accident, destroyed, it could be seen that the 
iriginal form was oblong. It was just a slip, indeed, as 
night have been chosen for a memorandum — for a record 
)f something to be long remembered and carefully pre- 
erved." 

"But," I interposed, "you say that the skull was not 
ipon the parchment when you made the drawing of the 



;[26 THE GOLD-BUG. 

beetle. How then do you trace any connection betweer 
the boat and the skull — since this latter, according to jom 
own admission, must have been designed (God only know!, 
how or by whom) at some period subsequent to youi 
sketching the scarahcFus? " ^ 

** Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery ; although the 
secret, at this point, I had comparatively little difficulty ill 
solving. My steps were sure, and could afford but i 
single result. I reasoned, for example, thus: When ]| 
drew the scarahceus, there was no skull apparent upon th(i 
parchment. When I had completed the drawing I gav 
it to you, and observed you narrowly until you returned it 
You, therefore, did not design the skull, and no one elsf 
was present to do it. Then it was not done by humai 
agency. And nevertheless it was done. 

"At this stage of my recollections I endeavored to ret 
member, and did remember, with entire distinctness, ever' 
incident which occurred about the period in question. Th 
weather was chilly (oh, rare and happy accident!), and ; 
fire was blazing upon the hearth. I was heated with exei 
eise and sat near the table. You, however, had drawn 
chair close to the chimney. Just as I placed the parch 
ment in your hand, and as you were in the act of inspectin 
it, Wolf, the Newfoundland, entered, and leaped upon you^ 
shoulders. With your left hand you caressed him an 
kept him off, while your right, holding the parchment, wa 
permitted to fall listlessly between your knees, and in clos 
proximity to the fire. At one moment I thought the blaz 
had caught it, and was about to caution you, but before 
could speak, you had withdrawn it, and were engaged in i1 
examination. When I considered all these particulars, ' 
doubted not for a moment that heat had been the agent i 
bringing to light, upon the parchment, the skull which 
saw designed upon it. You are well aware that chemicf 
preparations exist, and have existed time out of mind, t;^ 



THE GOLD-BUG. 127 

eans of which it is possible to write upon either paper or 
ilium, so that the characters shall become visible only 
hen subjected to the action of fire. Zaffre, digested in 
lua regia, and diluted vnth four times its weight of water, 

sometimes employed; a green tint results. The regulus 
: cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre, gives a red. These 
)lors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after the 
laterial written upon cools, but again become apparent 
pon the re-application of heat. 

' *^ I now scrutinized the death's-head with care. Its 
,iter edges — the edges of the drawing nearest the edge of 
le vellum — were far more distinct than the others. It 
as clear that the action of the caloric had been imperfect 
r unequal. I immediately kindled a fire, and subjected 
^ery portion of the parchment to a glowing heat. At 
rst, the only effect was the strengthening of the faint lines 
1 the skull; but, upon persevering in the experiment, 
lere became visible, at the corner of the slip, diagonally 
pposite to the spot in which the death's-head was de- 
neated, the figure of what I at first supposed to be a 
oat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me that it was 
itended for a kid." 

" Ha ! ha ! " said I, " to be sure I have no right to laugh 
t you — a million and a half of money is too serious a 
latter for mirth — but you are not about to establish a 
bird link in your chain — you will not find any especial 
onnection between your pirates and a goat — pirates, you 
now, have nothing to do with goats; they appertain to 
ke farming interest." 

" But I have just said that the figure was not that of a 
joat." 

" Well, a kid then — pretty much the same thing." 
' " Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. 
'You may have heard of one Captain Kidd. I at once 
Doked upon the figure of the animal as a kind of punning 



123 THE GOLD-BUG 

or hieroglyphical signature. I say signature; because it^ 
position upon the vellum suggested this idea. Tht 
death's-head at the corner diogonally opposite had, in thl 
same manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I wat 
sorely put out by the absence of all else — of the body to m; 
imagined instrument — of the text for my context." 

" I presume you expected to find a letter between th. 
stamp and the signature." 

" Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresist 
ibly impressed with a presentiment of some vast goo<^ 
fortune impending. I can scarcely say why. Perhapsl 
after all, it was rather a desire than an actual belief ; — h\i\\ 
do you know that Jupiter's silly words, about the buJj 
being of solid gold, had a remarkable effect upon m;ii 
fancy? And then the series of accidents and coincident! 
— these were so very extraordinary. Do you observe hoiti 
mere an accident it was that these events should hav< 
occurred upon the sole day of all the year in which it hail 
been, or may be sufficiently cool for fire, and that withou) 
the fire, or without the intervention of the dog, at thl 
precise moment in which he appeared, I should never hay' 
become aware of the death's-head, and so never the pod 
sessor of the treasure." 

" But proceed — I am all impatience." 

"Well; you have heard, of course, the many storic 
current — the thousand vague rumors afloat about monei 
buried, somewhere upon the Atlantic coast, by Kidd an 
his associates. These rumors must have had some founds 
tion in fact. And that the rumors have existed so lon^ 
and so continuous, could have resulted, it appeared to m^ 
only from the circumstance of the buried treasures sti' 
remaining entombed. Had Kidd concealed his plund(' 
for a time, and afterward reclaimed it, the rumors woul 
scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying iorm 
You will observe that the stories told are all about mone^ 



THE GOLD-BUG. 129 

eekers, not about money-finders. Had the pirate re- 
overed his money, there the affair would have dropped. 
t seemed to me that some accident — say the loss of a 
lemorandum indicating its locality — had deprived him of 
tie means of recovering it, and that this accident had be- 
ome known to his followers, who otherwise might never 
ave heard that the treasure had been concealed at all, and 
ho, busying themselves in vain, because unguided, at- 
smpts to regain it, had given first birth, and then uni> 
ersal currency to the reports which are now so common, 
lave you ever heard of any important treasure being un- 
arthed along the coast ? '' 

'' Never." 

"But that Kidd's accumulations were immense, is well 
nown. I took it for granted, therefore, that the earth 
till held them ; and you will scarcely be surprised when I 
gll you that I felt a hope, nearly amounting to certainty, 
hat the parchment so strangely found involved a lost 
ecord of the place of deposit.'' 

" But how did you proceed ? " 

^^ I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing 
he heat, but nothing appeared. I now thought it pos- 
ible that the coating of dirt might have something to do 
/■ith the failure: so I carefully rinsed the parchment by 
fouring warm water over it, and, having done this, I 
ilaced it in a tin pan, with the skull downward, and put 
he pan upon a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few 
linutes, the pan having become thoroughly heated, I re- 
loved the slip and, to my inexpressible joy, found it 
Ipotted, in several places, with what appeared to be figures 
]rranged in lines. Again I placed it in the pan, and 
puffered it to remain another minute. Upon taking it off, 
||he whole was just as you see it now.'' 
„ Here Legrand, having re-heated the parchment, sub- 
«aitted it to my inspection. The following characters were 



230 THE GOLD-BUG. 

rudely traced, in a red tint, between the death's-head and 
the goat: 

"53tif305))6*;4826)4t)4t.;:806*;48t8nr60))85;n(;:1:*8t83(88)5*t;4(' 
(;88*96*? ;8)*±( :485) ;5*t2:*t( :4956*2(5 * — 4)8118* ;4069285) ; )%\i 
)4tt;l(t9;48081;8:81:l;48t85;4)485t528806*81(1:9;48;(88;4(^:?34;48: 

4t ;161;:188;t?;" 

" But/' said I, returning him the slip, " I am as mucll 
in the dark as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda; 
awaiting me upon my solution of this enigma, I am quite 
sure that I should be unable to earn them." 

" And yet," said Legrand, '' the solution is by no meam 
so difficult as you might be led to imagine from the firsl- 
hasty inspection of the characters. These characters, aa 
any one might readily guess, form a cipher — that is to sajj 
they convey a meaning; but then from what is known oi 
Kidd, I could not suppose him capable of constructing an\ 
of the more abstruse cryptographs. I made up my mind: 
at once, that this was of a simple species — such, howeverl 
as would appear, to the crude intellect of the sailor, absO| 
lutely insoluble without the key." 

" And you really solved it ? " 

"Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness tei 
thousand times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bia: 
of mind, have led me to take interest in such riddles, amj 
it may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can con 
struct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity ma 
not, by proper application, resolve. In fact, having one 
established connected and legible characters, I scarcel 
gave a thought to the mere difficulty of developing thei 
import. 

".In the present case — indeed in all cases of secret wrr 
ing — the first question regards the language of the ciphei 
for the principles of solution, so far, especially, as the moi 
simple ciphers are concerned, depend upon, and are varie 
by, the genius of the particular idiom. In general, the:. 



THE GOLD-BUG. 131 

s no alternative but experiment (directed by probabilities) 
)f every tongue known to him who attempts the solution, 
mtil the true one be attained. But, with the cipher now 
)efore us all difficulty was removed by the signature. The 
3un upon the word ' Kidd ' is appreciable in no other 
anguage than the English. But for this consideration I 
;hould have begun my attempts with the Spanish and 
French, as the tongues in which a secret of this kind 
vould most naturally have been written by a pirate of the 
Spanish main. As it was, I assumed the cryptograph to 
)e English. 

' ^' You observe there are no divisions between the words, 
lad there been divisions the task would have been com- 
)aratively easy. In such case I should have commenced 
tith a collation and analysis of the shorter words, and had 
\ word of a single letter occurred, as is most likely, {a or 
', for example,) I should have considered the solution 
fS assured. But, there being no division, my first step was 
o ascertain the predominant letters, as well as the least 
requent. Counting all, I constructed a table thus: 



Of the character 8 the 

i 


L-e are 


33. 
26. 


4 




19. 


X) 




16. 


* 




13. 


5 




12. 


6 




11. 


tl 




8. 







6. 


92 




5. 


;3 




4. 


? 




3. 


IT 




2. 


— . 




1. 


w, in English, the 


letter \ 


is e. Afterward, 


the 


s 



-|^g2 THE GOLD-BUG. 

aoidhnrstuycfglmwlhpqxz. E predominates, 
so remarkably, that an individual sentence of any length is - 
rarely seen, in which it is not the prevailing character. 

'^Here, then, we have, in the very beginning, the 
groundwork for something more than a mere guess. The 
general use which may be made of the table is obvious— 
but, in this particular cipher, we shall only very partially, 
require its aid. As our predominant character is 8, we 
will commence by assuming it as the e of the natural 
alphabet. To verify the supposition, let us observe if the. 
8 be seen often in couples— for e is doubled with great fre-' 
quency in English— in such words, for example, as ' meet,'^ 
' fleet,^ ' speed,' ' seen,' ' been,' ' agree,' etc. In the present- 
instance we see it doubled no less than five times, althouglil 
the cryptograph is brief. 

" Let us assume 8, then, as e. Now, of all words m the 
language, ^he ' is most usual; let us see, thereforei 
whether there are not repetitions of any three charactersf 
in the same order of collocation, the last of them being & 
If we discover repetitions of such letters, so arranged, the^| 
will most probably represent the word 'the.' Upon m: 
spection we find no less than seven such arrangements, th 
characters being ;48. We may, therefore, assume that] 
represents t, 4 represents h, and 8 represents e— the las 
being now well confirmed. Thus a great step has bee: 

tfiken 

" But, having established a single word, we are enable 
to establish a vastly important point; that is to say, se^ 
eral commencements and terminations of other word 
Let us refer, for example, to the last instance but one, r 
which the combination ;48 occurs— not far from the enl 
of the cipher. We know that the; immediately ensuing 
the commencement of a word, and of the six characte: 
succeeding this ' the,' we are cognizant of no less than fiv 
Let us set these characters down, thus, by the letters \ 



THE GOLD-BUa. I33 

know them to represent, leaving a space for the un- 
known — 

t eeth. 

"Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the Hh/ as 
"orming no portion of the word commencing with the first 
/; since, by experiment of the entire alphabet for a letter 
idapted to the vacancy, we perceive that no word can be 
formed of which this th can be a part. We are thus nar- 
rowed into 

t ee, 

ind, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we 
'irrive at the word ' tree,' as the sole possible reading. We 
:hus gain another letter, r, represented by (, with the 
;vords^the tree' in juxtaposition. 

" Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we 
igain see the combination ;48, and employ it by way of 
lermination to what immediately precedes. We have thus 
;his arrangement : 

the tree ;4(t?34:the, 

^r, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads 
:hus : 

the tree thrj ?3h the. 

" Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave 
Dlank spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus : 

the tree thr...h the, 

when the word ' through ' makes itself evident at once. 
But this discovery gives us three new letters, 0, n, and g, 
fpepresented by J, ?, and 3. 



-j^g^ THE aOLD-BUG. 

" Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for com- 
binations of known characters, we find, not very far from 
the beginning, this arrangement, 

83(88, or egree, 

which plainly, is the conclusion of the word ' degree,' and 
gives us another letter, d, represented by f. 

" Four letters beyond the word ' degree,' we perceive the^ 
combination 

;46( ;88. 

"Translating the known characters, and representing 
the unknown by dots, as before, we read thus : 

th.rtee, 

an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word 
' thirteen,' and again furnishing us with two characters. 
i and n, represented by 6 and *. 

" Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph 
we find the combination, 

53nt. 

" Translating as before, we obtain 
.good, 

which assures us that the first letter is A, and that the fin 
two words are ' A good.' 

" It is now time that we arrange our key, as far as dii 
covered, in a tabular form, to avoid confusion. It wi 
stand thus : 



THE GOLD-BUG. 


5 represent 


3 a 


t 


d 


8 


e 


3 


g 


4 


h 


6 


i 


* << 


n 


t 





( 


r 


(( 


t 


? " 


u 



135 



"We have, therefore, no less than eleven of the most 
important letters represented, and it will be -unnecessary to 
proceed with the details of the solution, I have said 
enough to convince you that ciphers of this nature are 
readily soluble, and to give you some insight into the 
rationale of their development. But be assured that the 
specimen before us appertains to the very simplest species 
of cryptograph. It now only remains to give you the full 
translation of the characters upon the parchment, as un- 
riddled. Here it is: 



(f ( 



A good glass in the hisliop's hostel in the devil's seat 
forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and hy 
north main branch seventh limb east side shoot from the 
left eye of the death's-head a hee-line from the tree through 
the shot fifty feet out.' " 

" But," said I, " the enigma seems still in as bad a con- 
dition as ever. How is it possible to extort a meaning 
from all this jargon about ^ devil's seats,' ^ death's-heads,' 
and ^ bishop's hotels ? ' " 

" I confess," replied Legrand, " that the matter still 
wears a serious aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. 
My first endeavor was to divide the sentence into the 
natural division intended by the cryptographist." 



136 THE GOLD-BUG. 

^^ You mean^ to punctuate it ? '' 

" Something of that kind." 

" But how was it possible to effect this ? ^' 

'^ I reflected that it had been a point with the writer to 
run his words together without division, so as to increase 
the difficulty of solution. Now, a not over-acute man, in 
pursuing such an object, would be nearly certain to overdo 
the matter. When, in the course of his composition, he 
arrived at a break in his subject which would naturally 
require a pause, or a point, he would be exceedingly apt 
to run his characters, at this place, more than usually close 
together. If you will observe the MS., in the present in- 
stance, you will easily detect five such cases of unusual 
crowding. Acting upon this hint, I made the division 
thus : 

'^ ' A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the deviVs seat 
— forty-one degrees aiid thirteen minutes — northeast and 
by north — main branch seventh limb east side — shoot from 
the left eye of the death's-head — a bee-line from the tree \ 
through the shot fifty feet out.' " 

" Even this division," said I, " leaves me still in the 
dark." 

^^ It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, ^' for 
a few days; during which I made diligent inquiry in the 
neighborhood of Sullivan's Island, for any building which 
went by name of the ^ Bishop's Hotel ; ' for, of course, I 
dropped the obsolete word ^hostel.' Gaining no informa- 
tion on the subject, I was on the point of extending my 
sphere of search, and proceeding in a more systematic 
manner when, one morning, it entered into my head, quite 
suddenly, that this ' Bishop's Hostel ' might have some 
reference to an old family, of the name of Bessop which, 
time out of mind, had held possession of an ancient manor- 
house, about four miles to the northward of the island. I 



THE GOLD-BUG. 137 

iccordingly went over to the plantation, and re-instituted 
my inquiries among the older negroes of the place. At 
length one of the most aged of the women said that she 
bad heard of such a place as Bessop's Castle, and thought 
that she could guide me to it, but that it was not a castle, 
aor a tavern, but a high rock. 

"I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and after 
some demur, she consented to accompany me to the spot. 
We found it without much difficulty, when, dismissing her, 
I proceeded to examine the place. The ' castle ' consisted 
of an irregular assemblage of cliffs and rocks— one of the 
latter being quite remarkable for its height as well as for 
its insulated and artificial appearance. I clambered to its 
apex, and then felt much at a loss as to what should be 
next done. 

" While I was busied in reflection, my eyes fell upon a 
narrow ledge in the eastern face of the rock, perhaps a 
yard below the summit upon which I stood. This ledge 
projected about eighteen inches, and was not more than 
a foot wide, while a niche in the cliff just above it gave 
it a rude resemblance to one of the hollow-backed chairs 
used by our ancestors. I made no doubt that here was 
the ' devil's seat' alluded to in the MS., and now I seemed 
lo grasp the full secret of the riddle. 

" The good glass," I knew, could have reference to noth- 
ing but a telescope ; for the word ' glass ' is rarely em- 
ployed in any other sense by seamen. Now here, I at once 
saw, was a telescope to be used, and a definite point of 
yiew,' admitting no variation, from which to use it. Nor 
did I hesitate to believe that the phrases, ' forty-one de- 
grees and thirteen minutes,' and ' northeast and by north/ 
were intended as directions for the levelling of the glass. 
Greatly excited by these discoveries, I hurried home, pro- 
cured a telescope, and returned to the rock. 

" I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was 



138 THE GOLD-BUG. 

impossible to retain a seat upon it except in one particular 
position. This fact confirmed my preconceived idea. I 
proceeded to use the glass. Of course, the ^ forty-one de- 
grees and thirteen minutes ' could allude to nothing but 
elevation above the visible horizon, since the horizontal 
direction was clearly indicated by the words, * northeast 
and by north.' This latter direction I at once established 
by means of a pocket-compass ; then, pointing the glass as 
nearly at an angle of forty-one degrees of elevation as I 
could do it by guess, I moved it cautiously up or down, 
until my attention was arrested by a circular rift or open- ■ 
ing in the foliage of a large tree that overtopped its fellows 
in the distance. In the centre of this rift I perceived a 
white spot, but could not, at first, distinguish what it was. . 
Adjusting the focus of the telescope, I again looked, and 1 
now made it out to be a human skull. 

"Upon this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider j 
the enigma solved ; for the phrase * main branch, seventh i 
limb, east side,' could refer only to the position of the skull 
upon the tree, while ^ shoot from the left eye of the death's-- 
head' admitted, also, of but one interpretation, in regard I 
to a search for buried treasure. I perceived that the de-- 
sign was to drop a bullet from the left eye of the skull, and: 
that a bee-line, or, in other words, a straight line, drawn 
from the nearest point of the trunk through the * shot ' (or 
the spot where the bullet fell), and thence extended to a 
distance of fifty feet, would indicate a definite point — and 
beneath this point I thought it at least possible that a de- 
posit of value lay concealed." 

" All this," I said, " is exceedingly clear, and although 
ingenious, still simple and explicit. When you left the 
Bishop's Hotel, what then?" 

"Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, 
I turned homeward. The instant that I left * the devil's- i 
seat,' however, the circular rift vanished; nor could I get 



THE GOLD-BUG. 139 

1 glimpse of it afterward, turn as I would. What seems to 
me the chief ingenuity in thig whole business is the fact 
(for repeated experiment has convinced me it is a fact) 
that the circular opening in question is visible from no 
Dther attainable point of view than that afforded by the 
aarrow ledge upon the face of the rock. 

" In this expedition to the ' Bishop's Hotel ' I had been 
ittended by Jupiter, who had, no doubt, observed, for some 
n^eeks past, the abstraction of my demeanor, and took 
especial care not to leave me alone. But, on the next day, 
getting up very early, I contrived to give him the slip, 
md went into the hills in search of the tree. After much 
;oil I found it. When I came home at night my valet 
proposed to give me a flogging. With the rest of the ad- 
venture I believe you are as well acquainted as myself.'' 

*^I suppose," said I, "3^ou missed the spot, in the first 
ittempt at digging, through Jupiter's stupidity in letting 
he bug fall through the right instead of through the left 
)je of the skull." 

^' Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about 
wo inches and a half in the ^ shot ' — that is to say, in the 
)osition of the peg nearest the tree; and had the treasure 
)een beneath the * shot,' the error would have been of little 
noment ; but ^ the shot,' together with the nearest point of 
he tree, were merely two points for the establishment of a 
ine of direction; of course the error, however trivial in 
he beginning, increased as we proceeded with the line, 
md by the time we had gone fifty feet threw us quite off 
he scent. But for my deep-seated impressions that treas- 
ire was here somewhere actually buried, we might have 
lad all our labor in vain." 

"But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swing- 
ng the beetle — how excessively odd ! I was sure you 
v^ere mad. And why did you insist upon letting fall the 
)ug, instead of a bullet, from the skull ? " 



j^^Q THE GOLD-BUG. 

'' Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your 
evident suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved 
to punish you quietly, in my own way, by a little bit of 
sober mystification. For this reason I swung the beetle, 
and for this reason I let it fall from the tree. An obser- 
vation of yours about its great weight suggested the latter 

" Yes, I perceive ; and now there is only one point which 
puzzles me. What are we to make of the skeletons found? 
in the hole?" 

'' That is a question I am no more able to answer than 
yourself. There seems, however, only one plausible way' 
of accounting for them— and yet it is dreadful to believel 
in such atrocity as my suggestion would imply. It is 
clear that Kidd— if Kidd indeed secreted this treasure, 
which I doubt not— it is clear that he must have had assist-|i 
ance in the labor. But this labor concluded, he may havejii 
thought it expedient to remove all participants in his^ 
secret. Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock weref 
sufficient, while his coadjutors were busy in the pit; per 
haps it required a dozen— who shall tell?" 



NOTES. 

The chief object of notes is to throw light on the text for the stu- 
nt and the reader who may not have access to such reference 
oks as may be needed. The editor has sought such information 
seemed to him desirable, wherever it could be found, using freely 
e files of the Southern Literary Messenger, the many editions of 
)e's works, and the standard reference books. To the compilers 
d commentators who have preceded him he cheerfully and grate- 
lly acknowledges his indebtedness. 

TO HELEN. 

The subject of these beautiful lines was Mrs. Jane Craig Stanard, 
fe of Hon. Robert Stanard, of Richmond. Her sympathy and 
adness at Poe's first meeting with her completely won the boy's 
art. He thought Jane an unromantic name and substituted one 
)re to his liking, Poe was scarcely more than fourteen when the 
era was written. He claimed to have been even younger. 
" To Helen" appeared in 1831 in the third volume of " Poems" 
lich were published by Elam Bliss, New York, and dedicated 
Co the U. S. Corps of Cadets " of the West Point Academy from 
lich Poe had been expelled, March 6th of the same year, for dere- 
tion of duty. Cadets liberally subscribed to the volume and were 
)fully disappointed, it is said, when it was found not to contain 
^es and gibes at the professors, but only such masterpieces as 
Co Helen,'- " Israfel," "Lenore" and " The Valley of Unrest." 
was published later in the Southern Literary Messenger and other 
Lgazines. 

Page 1. " Hyacinth hair ; " a reddish-gold. 

Page 1. "Naiad airs." The Naiads presided over springs and 

cams and were represented as beautiful young girls who wore 

wns of flowers, and were musical and lighthearted. 
Page 1. Psyche was the most beautiful of maidens, the sweet- 
irt of Cupid himself. Her feminine curiosity to take a peep at her 

er while he slept got her into almost endless trouble. 



142 NOTES. 



TO 



The poet is probably upbraiding his first sweetheart, Miss Sara". 
Elmira Royster. They were greatly in love, the young lady' 
father intercepted the tender notes and shortly thereafter the youn 
lady wedded a man of middle age. As the comely and well-to-d 
Widow Shelton, she was again Poe's sweetheart in the closing yea 
of his life. 

The poem appeared in the 1837 edition. The present text is thaa 
of 1845. 

THE HAPPIEST DAY, THE HAPPIEST HOUR. 

This is one of the author's earliest poems. It is said that he wrotti 
it when eighteen years of age. As a youth he divined the sorrow vl 
and vanities of advancing years. 



A DREAM. 



" A Dream " first appeared in 1827 without a title. It was repubt 
lished in the collections of 1829 and 1845 with important variations? 
The text of 1845 is given in this volume. 

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM. 

"Imitation" is the name under which this poem appeared iiii 

1827. It was revised and appeared in the 1829 edition as "To .'.I 

In 1831 it was treated as a part of "Tamerlane." The presenu 
title and text are of the Griswold edition, 1849. 



THE LAKE:— TO 



I 



" The Lake" under the direction of the author had several pul » 
lications. It appeared in the editions of 1827, of 1829, and as 
part of "Tamerlane" in 1831. The final publication was in th 
1845 edition, the text of which is followed in this volume. 

The author delicately suggests suicide as an open door to th 
Eden he had failed to find elsewhere. '~'' 

TO THE RIVER . 

The first publication of "To the River" was made in 1829 in tl 
edition of " Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems." It was 
published under the author's direction as one of the "Poems 
Youth " in the 1845 edition. 



NOTES. 14-3 

ISRAFEL. 

This poem also appeared in 1831 in the edition dedicated to the 
^est Point Cadets. The poet was then twenty-one years of age. It 
as published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1836. 
Israfel is the angel of music. The Koran says he is to sound the 
isurrection trumpet the last day, for to him God has given the 
veetest voice of all His creatures. 

Page 7. "Red levin." Levin or leven is an obsolete word for 
ghtning. 

Page 7. "With the rapid Pleiads." The Pleiads are a group 
f stars in the constellation Taurus and are especially distinct on 

inter evenings. In ancient times there were supposed to be 
)ven Pleiads but only six now appear. Thus arises the suggestion 
f a lost Pleiad and to this the poet refers by use of the past tense: 

Which were seven." 

Page 8. " Where Love's a grown up God." Cupid, the god of 
)ve, is represented always as a beautiful boy. In heaven he is 
rown to full manhood for love is perfect there. 

Page 8. "The Houri glances." The Houris are represented in 
le Koran as beautiful maidens blessed with unfading beauty and 
Qdless youth. Their sole duty is to make eternal life full of 
appiness for the faithful. 

Page 8. "If I could dwell." Israfel's heart might not be so 
ght had it a mortal's sorrow to bear, nor his voice so merry 
nd sweet. This expresses an old bit of philosophy— we are creat- 
res of our environment. 

THE SLEEPER. 

As " Irene " this poem appeared in the 1831 collection and again 
1 the Southern Literary Messenger for May, 1836. Further pub- 
cations were made through the Philadelphia Saturday Museum, 
larch 4, 1843, the edition of 1845, and the Broadway Journal, 
rol. 1, p. 18. 

Page 9. " Looking like Lethe." Lethe, river of oblivion. 

Page 9. "A wizard rout." A magic pack of wolves. 

THE CITY IN THE SEA. 
Under the title "The Doomed City" these musical lines appeared 



144 NOTES 

in the edition of 1831 and as " The City of Sin " in the Southern 
Literary Messenger in August, 1836. The present title and text apj 
peared in the American Whig Revieic for April, 1845. 

The picture is startling — a city clinging to a cliff and at a sti 
sent to its doom in the sea. 

Page 11. "Time-eaten towers that tremble not." Note th 
alliteration of which Poe was so fond. 

Page 11. " Babylon-like walls." Two massive walls enclosec 
the great capital of Babylonia. The outermost wall of Babylon i 
variously estimated from 43 to 56 miles in length, the height 334 
feet, and the width at the top 85 feet, > 

Page 12. "Each idol's diamond eye." The " Orloff," probably 
the largest and one of the most famous diamonds of the world 
once formed the eye of an Indian god. It is now in the sceptre o\\ 
the emperor of Russia. 

LENORE. 

The present form of the poem is widely different from that given 
it by the poet in the edition of 1831. This sweet and innocent 
human flower withers under the evil eye and slanderous tongue 
But she has escaped it all now in the hallowed mirth above and fo 
her no dirge shall be upraised, but the angel of her flight shall b( 
wafted with a Paean. 

The text of " Lenore " given in this volume was published ii 
the Pioneer for February, 1843 ; in the Saturday Museum, March 4 
1843 ; and in the collection of 1845. 

Page 13. " Golden bowl ; " "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, 
the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher broken at the fountain, 
the wheel broken at the cistern." Ecclesiastes XII, 6. 

Page 13. " The Stygian river." In classical mythology the riv( 
Styx divided the realm of the living from the abode of the dead 
and all must cross it at death. 

Page 13. Peccavimus. Perfect tense of peccare, to sin, hence 
rendered, " we have sinned." 

VALLEY OF UNREST. 

This, like many of Poe's earlier poems, was polished almost out 
of recognition. It was first published in 1831, under the title, 



NOTES. 145 

* The Valley Nis." It is supposed to have been connected with the 
lagged Mountains, near the University of Virginia. It was pub- 
ished in its present form in the edition of 1845 and in the Broadway 
'ournal. 

Page 14. "The misty Hebrides." A group of islands west of 
)COtland. 

THE COLISEUM. 

Poe submitted " The Coliseum " in the contest for a prize offeied 
)y the Baltimore Saturday Visiter. It would have won the second 
prize had not the " Manuscript Found in a Bottle " won the first. 
[t was later published in the Messenger during Poe's editorship, in 
he Saturday Ecening Post„ of Philadelphia, June 12, 1841, in the 
Saturday Museum, March 4, 1843, and in the 1845 edition. 

Page 15. "Memories of Eld." Eld, though archaic, is not in- 
frequently used by poets for "old time." "Astrologers and men 
)f eld." Longfellow. 
Page 15. " Rapt Chaldee." The Chaldean astrologer. 
Page 16. " As melody from Memnon to the Sun." The story is 
m old and pleasant one that many years ago the statues of Memnon 
md his daughter in the Nile Valley gave out musical notes as the 
norning sun touched them. 

HYMN. 

As a part of " Morella" this prayer was published in the Southern 
Literary Magazine for April, 1835. The text is that of the 1845 
edition. 

BRIDAL BALLAD. 

TO . 

"The Bridal Ballad" or " Ballad " as Poe then called it was pub- 
lished for the first time in the January number of the Southern 
Literary Messenger, 1837. It was early in this month that Poe's 
connection with the Messenger was severed. The "Ballad "was 
also published in the Saturday Evening Post, of Philadelphia, in 
the 1845 collection, and in the Broadway Journal. 



14:6 NOTES. 

TO ZANTE. 

This poem appeared first in the Southern Literary Messenger for 
January, 1837, the very month in which was severed Poe's relation- 
ship with the magazine he had made famous. 

Page 18. " O purple Zante." Zante, one of the Ionian islands 
in the Mediterranean sea. 

Page 18. " Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante! " Golden island, flower 
of the Levant. 

THE HAUNTED PALACE. 

"The Haunted Palace" appeared in the April number of the 
Baltimore Museum. In the following September Burton's Gentle- 
man's Magazine published "The Fall of the House of Usher" with 
" The Haunted Palace " as a gem set in it. 

Writing of the "House of Usher," James Russell Lowell said: 
" In this tale occurs one of the most beautiful of his poems . . . 
We know no modern poet who might not have been justly proud 
of it." 

Page 20. "And laugh — but smile no more." It is common be- 
lief that the broken-hearted and the bad can laugh at will but never 
smile. 

TO ONE IN PARADISE. 

This poem was first published as a part of a fantastic story to 
which the author gave the title "The Visionary," in the Southern 
Literary Messenger in July, 1835. 



TO F- 



This poem appeared in the Southern LAterary Messenger for July, 
1835, addressed " To Mary." I believe the poet then had reference 
to Miss Mary Winfree, of Chesterfield, Virginia, who rejected his 
proffered love. It finally became a tribute to Mrs. Frances S. Osgood, 
a much later sweetheart. 

THE CONQUEROR WORM. 

The terrible picture shown in this poem is of a character the poet 
dearly loved to paint. It is the tragedy of human life removed 
from the footlights to the printed page. 



NOTES. 147 

Page 23. " Mimes." Actors. 

Page 23. " Condor wings." Like those of the condor, the South 
American Vulture. 

DREAM-LAND. 

"Dream-Land" was first published in Graham's Magazine for 
June, 1844. 

Page 24. "Eidolon." Shade, spectre, apparition. 

Page 24. " Dim Thule." " The name given by Pytheas of Mar- 
seilles to a region or island north of Great Britain, the position of 
which has been for more than two thousand years the subject of 
investigation and a matter of controversy." Century Dictionary. 

Page 24. "Titan woods." Boundless forests. The Titans are 
often used as types of gigantic size. 

Page 25. "Eldorado." From the Spanish, meaning, literally. 

The Golden." It is a land rich beyond measure in golden treasure 
and jewels. 

EULALIE— A SONG. 

'Eulalie," with the sub-title " A Song," appeared in the Ameri- 
can Whig Review, for July, 1845. 

Page 27. " Astarte " was the Phoenician goddess of love. She 
is the counterpart of Baal, and is represented by the moon as he 
by the sun. 

THE RAVEN. 

Poe's masterpiece has probably been more discussed by critics 
than any poem in the language. Poe told John R. Thompson that 

hile living in Philadelphia during an epidemic of cholera he be- 
came deeply depressed at sight of the dead and dying and going 
liome dropped into a troubled sleep, dreaming that a great black bird 
flew in and sat over the door, filling him with unspeakable horror 
by saying " I am the spirit of the cholera and you are the cause of 
me." Thompson was inclined to believe this was the germ from 
which " The Raven " grew. 

Poe told Mrs. A. B. Shelton, formerly Miss Sarah Elmira Royster, 
tiis first sweetheart and last, that she was the Lenore of the Raven. 
3he was familiarly known as such to her death. The poem was 
first published in the Evening Mirror, January 29, 1845. 



14:8 NOTES. 

Page 27. "Bleak December." The montli in which Poe 
mother died and he became a homeless, helpless orphan. 

Page 29. " Bust of Pallas." Pallas is a name for Atliene, god- 
dess of wisdom among the Greeks. 

Page 29. "Night's Plutonian shore." Pluto was god of the 
lower world, the regions of the dead where utter darkness reigned. 

Page 31. "Nepenthe." Originally a drug which removed all 
sorrow as long as its effects lasted. It came to mean anything 
which quieted physical or mental anguish. ] 

ULALUME. 

Here Poe gives expression to his aversion to October — " the lone- 
some October," — month of his death, and, according to a note 
written a friend after he had become a man, the month of his birth. 
In no poem does Poe more vividly illustrate his wonderful skill in 
the use of the English language. 

TO HELEN. 

(" Helen — my Helen — the Helen of a thousand dreams.") 
The "Helen" of these lines was Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, t 
whom Poe became engaged, pledging to stop excesses. The wil 
was too frail for the temptation, and the lovers were soon estningti! 

Page 37. " Dian." Diana, goddess of the chase, imp Lrsonatic-v 
of purity. 

FOR ANNIE. 

This poem is addressed to Mrs. Richmond, of Low*. II, Mass. 
whom the poet had met upon a visit to Lowell where iw. went tc 
deliver a lecture. 

Page 39. "Napthaline river." Red river. 

TO MY MOTHER. 

This beautiful tribute to Mrs. Clemm, Virginia's mother, w_^ 
fully deserved for she was to Poe all that the love and patience of ■ 
mother could make her. ^ 



NOTES. 149 

THE BELLS. 

' The Bells" was written at the suggestion of Mrs. Marie Louise 
Shew, the sweet character who won the poet's lasting gratitude 
and affection by her devotion to the dying Virginia. It is the 
most beautiful and realistic onomatopoetic poem in any language, 
Southey's " Lodore " by no means excepted. The first publication 
was in the Home Journal, April 28, 1849. 

ANNABEL LEE. 

'Annabel Lee" is universally considered one of the rarest gems 
of the language. Its beauty and music will ring true to the end. 
People like to think and will continue to think that Annabel Lee 
can be no other than the poet's beloved Virginia, though this has 
been denied 

A few days before Poe's death he handed the poem to his friend, 
John R. Thomson, editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, say- 
ing : " Here's a trifle which you may be able to use." An agency, 
however, had sent the poem to the New York Tribune and this 
newspaper gave it first publication. 

ELDORADO. 

" Eldorado" was the last of Poe's poems to be published. Gris- 
wold brought it out in his edition of 1850. The story of the disap- 
pointed knight is the story of Edgar Allan Poe. 

MORELLA. 

'Morella" was one of the "Tales of the Folio Club." Its first 
"appearance was in the April number of the Southern Literary Mes- 
senger, 1835. It was republished in the Gentleman's Magazine, 
Philadelphia, for November 1839, The author also included it in 
his collection of "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque," vol. 1, 
Lea and Blanchard, 1840. It was again published in the Broadway 
Journal, vol. 1, p. 25. 

Page 51. ""Eros." Eros is the Greek name of Cupid, the god of 
love. 

Page 51. "Presburg Education." Presburg was formerly the 
capital of Hungary, about thirty-four miles southeast of Vienna. 
It is now the seat of a number of well-known educational institutions. 



;|^50 NOTES. 

Page 52. "As Hinnon became Gehenna." Gehenna, the place 
of everlasting torment, means really the Valley of Hinnora(n) 
where the sacrifices to Moloch were offered, and where fires were 
kept constantly burning for the consumption of refuse of every 
kind. 

Page 52. ' ' Wild Pantheism of Fichte. " Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 
a great German philosopher, 1762-1814, taught that God was not a 
person but a supreme law or system of laws, intellectual, moral 
and spiritual. 

Page 52. " UaXiyyeveaia of Pythagoras." The "regeneration" of 
Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher, who taught the " transmigra- 
tion of souls." 

Page 52. Schelling was a friend of Fichte, and a leading teacher 
of philosophy at Berlin. He died August 1854. 

Page 54. "As the cypress is the most enduring of trees." To 
the ancients the cypress was the tree of sorrow and mourning. It 
is also of slow growth and long life. An instance of this is shown 
by what is often referred to as the "lone cypress" on Jamestown 
Island, in Virginia, the place of first permanent settlement on 
American soil by the English. This tree stands in shallow water a 
hundred yards from the shore. It is known to be sixty years old 
and yet its trunk is not twelve inches in diameter. 

Page 54. " Psestum," an ancient name of Pesto, a ruined town 
of the province of Salerno, nineteen miles southwest of Campagne, 
Italy. It was situated in a fertile plain where are now the ruins of 
a large edifice supposed to have been a temple of Ceres. 

Page 54. * ' Teian " refers to Anacreon, who was born in Teos, 
of Ionia, Greece. Anacreon sang chiefly the praises of love and of 
wine and is said to have died at the ripe age of eighty-five, from 
choking with a grape seed. 

Page 54. " Moslemin at Mecca." Moslems are the followers of 
Mohammed, and Mecca is the most celebrated city of Arabia having 
the distinction of being the seat of the Mohammedan religion. 

Page 57. Hemlock, like the cypress, is an ancient plant signify- 
ing sorrow and desolation. Socrates was condemned to die by 
drinking hemlock juice. 

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 
James Russell Lowell writing in the February number of 



NOTES. 151 

Graham's Magazine for 1845 has this to say of Poe's style, especially 
as shown in " The Fall Of the House of Usher: " 

"Beside the merit of conception, Mr. Poe's writings have also 
that of form. His style is highly finished, graceful, and truly 
classical. It would be hard to find a living author who has dis- 
played such varied powers. As an example of his style, we would 
refer to one of his tales, "The House of Usher," in the first volume 
of his " Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque." It has a singular 
charm for us, and we think that no one could read it without being 
strongly moved by its serene and somber beauty. Had its author 
written nothing else, it would alone have been enough to stamp him 
as a man of genius, and a master of a classic style." 

" The Fall of the House of Usher " appeared first in the Gentle- 
man's Magazine, Philadelphia, for September, 1839. It was in- 
cluded by Poe in the "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque" 
which appeared a year later. The author revised the story for the 
Broadway Journal in which it was reprinted in 1845. 

Page 59. "A black and lurid tarn." A tarn is "a small moun- 
tain, lake, or pool, especially one which has no visible feeders." 
Century Dictionary. 

Page 61. " Minute fungi." Fungi is the plural form of the 
Latin word fungus, meaning a mushroom. It is the lowest order 
of plant life of the mushroom kind. 

Page 62. "Gothic." "An epithet commonly applied to the 
European art of the middle ages, and more particularly to the 
various pointed types of architecture generally prevalent from the 
middle of the twelfth century to the revival of study of classical 
models in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries." 

Page 62. "And the phantasmagoric armorial trophies." The 
spectral or seemingly unreal rewards of ancestral prowess. 

Page 63. Ennuye, from the French, past participle of ennuyer, 
bored, sated with pleasure. 

Page 63. In his portrait of Roderick Usher Poe gives a remark- 
ably true description of his own face. Bearing in mind the words, 
"these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of 
the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be for- 
gotten," consult any authentic portrait of the poet. 

Page 63. "Connect its Arabesque expression." "Arabesque" 
because the hair and the features were of such character and were 
30 varied as to produce an unnatural effect,— fanciful and unreal. 



152 NOTES. 

Page 64. " Eater of opium." Poe accounts for the vagaries of 
many of his strange characters on the ground that they drank alco- 
holic liquors or ate opium. He was himself at times a pitiful slave 
to drink, and one of the explanations of his untimely death is 
that he was drugged into an unconsciousness which enveloped his 
last hours in deepest gloom. 

Page 65. The physical surroundings of Roderick Usher had a 
lasting effect upon his life and moral nature, as one's environment 
will always have. 

Page 66. " Cataleptical character." Poe used alliteration fre 
quently and with fine effect. Catalepsy is a disease usually con- 
nected with hysteria and renders the victim unconscious, with limbs 
rigid as in death. 

Page 66. " Wild improvisations."' The musician composed as 
he played. Beethoven is said to have composed the " Moonlight 
Sonata " in similar way ^hile playing for a blind girl. He hurried 
home to write it down, fearing he would forget it. 

Page 67. Baron Karl von Weber, an eminent German com- 
poser, died in 1826. His masterpiece is the opera of " Der Fries- 
chutz " which came out in 1822. His last work, " Oberon," which 
was published the year of his death, was also remarkably successful. 

Page 67. "Hypochondriac." One who is in constant fear of 
dying and therefore morbid and hopeless. 

Page 67. "Reveries of Fuseli." John Henry Fuseli changed 
his family name from Fiissli to that which he later made famous by 
great classical learning and eminent talent as an imaginative painter. 
" His reach of thought and poetic feeling have not been excelled " 
says Allan Cunningham. His masterpieces are eight pictures of 
the "Shakespeare Gallery" and his illustrations of Dante and 
of Milton. 

Page 68. "The Haunted Palace," first published in ihe Balti- 
more Museum, has long been taken from its setting in the " House 
of Usher " and included among Poe's poems. 

Page 70. " Sentience." Feeling, consciousness. 

Page 71. Jean Baptiste Gresset deserves to be remembered in 
literature chiefly for his poems, " Vert Vert " and " Ma Chartreuse." 
The first gave him fame and the second caused him to be ex]ielled 
from the Society of Jesuits, his brethren feeling that he had sought 
to bring into ridicule all the nuns of the church. He died in ' 777. 

Page 71. Macchiavelli was an eminent statesman of Italy. For 



NOTES. 153 

fourteen years he was secretary of the ' ' Ten " who managed the 
diplomatic affairs of the republic. He was sent during this period 
on many missions to France as the government's representative and 
acquitted himself always with distinction. He became an enemy of 
the Medicis who gained control of Florentine affairs in 1512 and 
who promptly banished him from the city but forbade his going 
into exile. He spent the ensuing several years of retirement in 
literary work writing during the period his most important book, 
" The Prince." This brought him into disgrace at the time but has 
since been better understood. 

Page 71. Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish naturalist, mathe- 
matician and theosophist, who is known to-day chiefly by his re- 
ligious views and for the Church of the New Jerusalem which 
sprang from his teachings. The main principle taught by him is 
that Jesus Christ is the only God with a Trinity of attributes and 
that salvation is obtained by obedience to God's commandments. 

Page 71. Baron Ludwig von Holberg was a Danish author of 
note. He died in 1754. His "Subterranean Voyage" is a satire 
written in Latin and of the general type of " Gulliver's Travels." 

Page 71. Robert Fludd was an English physician whose writ- 
ing on the occult sciences made him famous. He died in 1487. 

Page 71. Marin Cureau de la Chambre was a French physician 
and philosophic writer and had the distinction of being physician to 
Louis XIV. His best known work is the " Character of the Pas- 
sions." He died about 1780. 

Page 71. Nicholas Eymeric, a native of Gerona, Spain, entered 
the Dominican order and was regarded as one of the greatest canon- 
ists of his time. He was made Inquisitor-General in 1356 and wrote 
the "Inquisitors Directory." The maxims of this volume became 
the guide of Torquemada. 

Page 71. Pomponius Mela was a celebrated Roman geographer. 
His chief work was Be situ orhis, " On the situation of the Earth." 

Page 71. In classic mythology satyrs were sylvan deities usually 
represented as part man, part goat. 

Page 71. VigilcB Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesim Magun- 
tince. ' ' Night watches of the dead like unto the choir of the church 
of Maguntina. '* 



254 NOTES. 



THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH. 

*• The Masque of the Red Death " was a contribution to GraJiam's 
Magazine for May, 1842. It was republished in the Broadway 
Journal, vol. ii, p. 2, This tale gives an excellent idea of Poe's 
wonderful mastery in descriptive narrative. 

It has long been a question with general readers and teachers 
whether or not the "Red Death" was really a disease wliioh ever 
existed. The editor has been at some pains to ascertain v l.at is the 
opinion of leading physicians, who have made the history of medi- 
cine a special study, regarding the existence of any disease which 
was characterized by the symptoms described by Poe. These phy- 
sicians, residing in Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York, have 
been unanimous in the statement that such a disease described b} 
Poe in " The Masque of the Red Death " is undoubtedly a concep 
tion of the poet's mind, since there is no record of it in history. 

Page 81. "Avatar." Manifestation, (secondary meaning.) 

Page 81. "Prince Prospero." A fictitious name. The authoi 
doubtless had in mind that other Prince Prospero, the banished 
Duke of Milan, who was deposed by his brother, Anthonio, and set 
adrift in a " rotten carcass of a boat." 

Page 81. " Castellated." Having turrets or battlements. 

Page 82. " Improvisatori." Plural of improvisator, one who 
improvises. 

Page 84. Decora. Plural of decorum, propriety of speech or 
behavior. 

Page 84. " Hernani." A tragedy by Victor Hugo. 

ELEONORA. 

" Eleonora," one of the most wholesome of all Poe's tales, was fii 
published in the Gift in 1842. The author revised it and repul 
lished it in the Broadway Journal, vol. 1, p. 21. 

Page 89. " Moods of mind exalted at the expense of the genen 
intellect." Doubtless Poe had himself in mind, for of all men h^ 
was a man of "moods," at the expense chiefly, however, of wi 
power. 



NOTES. 155 

Page 89. Aggressi sunt mare tenehrarum, quid in eo essset ex- 
ploraturi, " They enter a sea of darkoess to see what may be found 
therein." It is much in doubt who the Nubian geographer here 
quoted is. Poe not infrequently referred to people and books as 
actually existing which had no being save in his own fertile 
imagination. 

Page 90. " Then play unto its riddle the CEdipus," or, as (Edi- 
pus did to the riddle of the Sphinx, give the answer. Read the 
story of (Edipus whose strange mythological career has furnished 
the plot of more classic tragedies than probably any other. 

Page 90. " She whom I loved in youth, and of whom I now pen 
calmly and distinctly these remembrances, was the sole daughter of 
the only sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the 
name of my cousin." Poe is certainly alluding here to Virginia 
Clemm, his first cousin who became his wife. Virginia was the 
daughter of his father's sister. 

Page 90. "Valley of the Many-Colored Grass." The author 
could hardly have found a name for the scene of his story more 
poetic and suggestive than this; land of fertility and of sweet 
odors, land of soft earth and bright skies. 

Page 90. '• Brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora." A 
more delicate tribute to Eleonora could not have been given, and 
the light of the river and the light of the " eyes of Eleonora*' are 
all left to the imagination of the reader. Frequently in this story 
Poe uses the comparison with fine effect. 

Page 92. "And life arose in our paths." The author with the 
touch of the true artist is telling the old story. All things and all 
3ays are bright and happy to the young who live in the light of 
3ach other's love. 

Page 92. " Harp of ^olus." ^olus to the Greek.q was the 
^od of the winds and is said to have reigned in the ^olian Islands, 
5()w the Lipari Islands, north of Sicily. The ^olian harp is 
clayed by the action of the winds. 
' Page 92. ' ' Which we had long watched in the regions of Hesper." 

Hesper is the poetic name for Hesperus, given by the Greeks to 
he evening star, our "Venus." Poe here uses it to denote the 
ifVest, the region of the evening star. 

I Page 92. " The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim. " 
Jeraphim is a plural form of Seraph. " From the etymology of 
he name, Seraphs have usually been regarded as ' burning ' or 



156 NOTES. 

* flaming ' angels, consisting of or like fire, and associated with the 
ideas of light, ardor and purity." Century Dictionary. 

Page 92. "Bard of Schiraz." Schiraz, more often written 
Sheeraz, is a city ot Persia, capital of the province of Pars. It is 
located in a fertile valley 4,500 feet above the sea. A short distance 
outside of the walls of the city is the tomb of the poet, Hahz, a 
native of Sheeraz, to whom reference is here made. 

Page 92. " Like the ephemeron." Ephemeron is the May-fly 
of the Greeks, an insect which lives but one day. The "w ord has 
come to mean anything of brief existence. 

Page 93. "Saint in Helusion." A very rare form of the word 
Elysium, the Greeks' abode of the blessed after death. 

Page 94. "But a second change had come upon all things." 
His love was dead. He saw no life, no beauty in anything. 

Page 95. "The ethereal Ermeugarde." Ermengarde was tin 
ambitious and commanding queen of Provence, France. She per 
suaded her husband, Boson, brother-in-law of Charles, the Bald, of 
France, to assume the title of King of Aries and her desire for 
power brought about a disastrous war with Louis HI of France. 
She lived in the ninth century. 

THE GOLD-BUG. 

"The Gold-Bug "was a prize story of the Pliiladelplda Dollar 
Newspaper and was published in the issue of June 21-28 1843, and 
republished in 1845 in the collected "Tales" by Edgar A. Poe, 
Wiley & Putnam, New York. 

Page 97. Huguenot is the name applied to the Protestants of 
France. 

Page 98. "Entomological specimens." Entomology is the 
branch of zoology which treats of insects. 

Page 98. Jan Swammerdam was an eminent Dutch naturalist. 
His most celebrated work is a " Natural History of Bees." He died 
at Amsterdam in 1680. 

Page 99. Scarabmis. Latin or entomological name for beetle. 

Page 99. The antennce are the " feelers " or horns of insects. 

Page 101. Scarahmis caput hominis, "beetle with the head oi 
a man." 

Page 103. *' Syphon." Cypher. 

Page 104. Brusquerie. Abrupt or rude manner. 



NOTES. 157 

Page 105. Solus. Latin for alone. 

Page 106. Emprmement. French for eagerness, cordiality. 

Page 111. Liriodendron Tulipiferum. Botanical name for the 
ilip-tree. 

Page 117. " Curvets and caracols." Both words carry the idea 
f frisking and prancing. 

Page 121. " Bacchanalian figures." Bacchus was the Latin god 
f wine. The figures were representations of this mirth-making 

eity. 

Page 122. " Was dying with impatience." This is a strong 
xpression which is in frequent use to the present time. 

Page 122. " Parchment" is the skin of sheep or goats prepared 
or writing purposes. It is much used now for legal papers, college 
liplomas, and a variety of other documents which are intended to 
[)e preserved indefinitely. 

Page 127. "Vellum" is the skin of calves prepared for writ- 
ing purposes. 

Page 127. " Zaffre " is "the residuum of cobalt-producing 
)res after the sulphur, arsenic, and other volatile substances have 
3cen more or less completely expelled by roasting." Century 
Dictionary. 

Page 127. Aquia regia— royal water— is the "name given to 
1 mixture of one part of nitric acid and three to four parts of 
'lydrochloric acid, from its power of dissolving gold." Century 
Dictionary. 

Page 127. "Regulus of cobalt." In early chemistry the mass 
obtained by the treatment of metallic ores was called "regulus." 

Page 127. " You may have heard of one Captain Kidd." 
William Kidd, or as he is known in local traditions, Robert Kidd, 
was the most notorious of all pirates and his name will live con- 
tinually in song and story. He was born in Scotland in 1650. Be- 
ing intrusted by the British government with the command of a 
privateer for the purpose of suppressing pirates along the American 
coast, he became the foremost of all pirates. He is known to have 
buried a large treasure on Gardiner's Island, at the east end of Long 
Island, New York, and when captured in Boston in 1699 he was 
found still to have 738 ounces of gold, 847 ounces of silver, and 
several bags of silver ornaments and precious stones. These were 
considered but a small part of all he had collected. Occasionally 
searching parties even to this time explore the shore of Long Island 



158 



NOTES. 



Sound in the hope of finding the buried treasure. He was take 
England, tried, and was executed in 1701. 

Page 128. " Hieroglyphical signature." Hieroglyphic wrii 
is the manner of writing where the object stands for its name 

Page 130. "Form a cypher." Cypher is a secret mannei 
writing. Codes or cyphers are in constant use by governrae 
newspapers, and all large mercantile houses especially when so 
messages are sent by a third agency, such as a telegraph compa 

Page 130. ' ' Cryptographs." A cryptograph is something wrii 
in secret characters. 






























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